LONDON, 24 July 2004 — “We meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.”
The US president’s words seemed to capture perfectly the state of his nation and the turbulence of the times. It is only their fluency and rolling lyricism that betray that, despite their relevance, they are not from any speech by George W Bush; instead, they are the words of John F. Kennedy, speaking 42 years ago as he set the United States on a mission to put a man on the moon.
Kennedy was gunned down before he could see the climax to his grand vision: The Apollo launch, the Eagle landing and one man’s giant leap into immortality 35 years ago this week. The lunar landing, like the rest of the space race, had its origins in the Cold War and an American desperation to match the Russians’ early advances. But whatever the political motives, for those who witnessed it, the lunar landing was a defining moment. It was an experience shared by a colossal television audience who, as the line from American Pie puts it, were “all in one place, a generation lost in space.”
Many years on, the moon landing is just another piece of 60s monochrome alongside the shooting of Kennedy, the fights of Ali and the Beatles arriving in America. Born two years after the lunar landing, I grew up with the events of July 1969 as established fact. A piece of history already written. Like many young boys of that time, I was fascinated by astronomy, stars and space; on cloudless nights I would gaze up at the moon, but rather than speculating as to whether man would ever reach it, I already knew it was possible. It had been done — and there were pictures to prove it.
When Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, left the barren world, he departed with the words, “We leave as we came, and God willing as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind.” But we have not been back.
The reasons are clear; without the Russians goading the Americans the motivation is no longer there, the costs of manned flight compared to more efficient, unmanned explorations are prohibitive, and, of course, the pressing needs on our own planet. It is a criticism often made that when the Americans appear to be in trouble on their planet they begin to announce plans for space exploration, as with President Bush’s speculative plans for a trip to Mars. Bush was derided for suggesting such a journey; without the spur of the Cold War, the enthusiasm for space has abated.
It is difficult to imagine my generation ever experiencing their own lunar moment in the modern world; some singular moment of hope that we will remember in decades to come and that will indelibly define and locate us.
In the decades since JFK we have become increasingly suspicious of political leaders wielding big ideas or grand visions. Prime ministers and presidents still try to seduce with grand gestures, but they risk scorn rather than applause. From Nixon’s “war on cancer” to Blair trying to save Africa and Bush’s war on terror, we are less impressed with big visions. Ironically, it is now the terrorists whose symbolism is more potent, be it the felling of the twin towers in New York or the beheading of American Nick Berg in Iraq.
Another difference between now and then is the suspension of our faith in the progress of science and technology.
The huge advances in medicine and science over the past decade — genetically modified food, the cloning of animals, the possibilities of stem cell research — all have momentous implications. But rather than jubilation we are now far more wary of the hazardous implications of progress.
In Moon Landing, WH Auden wrote, “We were always adroiter with objects than lives.” Thirty-five years on, it is our own lives that move us more than moons. The great advances are not through grand projects but in the personal realm — information, communication — and our ambitions are less to do with collective victories than individual gains.
Which is why, to me, the anniversary of the lunar landing evokes feelings of magic and loss. Magic that it was ever achieved, loss that my generation never experienced its like.
When I asked a 21-year-old British friend what single event she could recall from her early childhood, something she watched with rapt awe, it was not the release of Nelson Mandela or the fall of the Berlin Wall that she cited: It was the 1994 launch of the UK’s National Lottery.
