The first arrival of earthly life on another celestial body ranks as an epochal event not only for our generation, but in the history of our planet. Neil Armstrong was at the cusp of the Apollo programme. This was a collective technological effort of epic scale, but his is the one name sure to be remembered centuries hence.
Armstrong spent years as a test pilot, but he didn't seem a daredevil; indeed his demeanour more resembled a stolid civilian airline captain. He described himself as a "nerdy engineer", and it was as a professor of engineering that he quietly spent his later life.
Apollo 11 landed on the moon only twelve years after the launch of Sputnik, and only 66 years after the Wright brothers' first flight. Had the pace been sustained there would by now be human footprints on Mars. But the moon race was an end in itself, driven by the urge to beat the Russians; there was no motive to sustain the huge expenditure.
The images of Earth's delicate biosphere, contrasting with the sterile moonscape where the astronauts left their footsteps, have become iconic for environmentalists: these may indeed be the Apollo programme's most enduring legacy.
It is now 40 years since Harrison Schmidt and Eugene Cernan, the last men on the moon, returned to Earth. To the young, this is all ancient history. They learn that America landed men on the moon just as they learn that the Egyptians built the pyramids, but the motivations seem almost as bizarre in the one case as in the other; the outdated gadgetry and "right stuff" values portrayed in films and news clips of the period seem as antiqated as those of a traditional Western. Manned spaceflight has lost its glamour – understandably so, because it hardly seems inspiring, 40 years after Apollo, for astronauts merely to circle the Earth in the space shuttle and the International Space Station.
We depend on space technology for communications, weather forecasting, mapping, position-finding and so forth quite apart from the science it has given us. But this doesn't need astronauts.
Closeups of the Martian surface, and of Jupiter, Saturn and their moons, have beamed back pictures of varied and distinctive worlds. In the coming decades, the entire solar system will be explored by flotillas of unmanned craft. Indeed, it is realistic to expect robotic fabricators, building large structures, or perhaps mining rare materials from asteroids.
But will people venture back to the moon, and beyond? The need weakens with each advance in robots and miniaturisation. But deep space still beckons as a long-range adventure for – at least a few – humans.
Perhaps the Chinese will embark on a prestigious space spectacular. For this, a return to the moon would not be enough. To repeat Neil Armstrong's feat, 50 years later, would hardly proclaim that China had achieved parity with the US. They would surely aim to trump Apollo by heading for Mars.
But would humans on Mars serve a purpose beyond mere prestige? There's no denying that an observant geologist might make startling discoveries that Nasa's recently-landed Curiosity rover would overlook. But the current cost gap between manned and unmanned missions is huge.
This is partly because Nasa has become constrained by public and political opinion to be too risk-averse. The space shuttle's two failures in its 135 launches were national traumas in the US, though that is a risk-level that astronauts would willingly accept.
Indeed Neil Armstrong, who landed the tiny Eagle module with the aid of no more computer power than we have in a washing machine today, rated his odds of a safe touchdown as no better than 50/50. And that wasn't the scariest risk: the rockets that blasted them off on the return trip could have failed. Indeed, staff of the president, Richard Nixon, had prepared an alternative speech for him to give if Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had been stranded and perished on the moon.
Future expeditions to the moon and beyond will only be politically and financially viable if they are cut-price ventures, spearheaded by individuals with the right stuff of the Apollo astronauts, prepared to accept high risks – perhaps even "one-way tickets". They may be privately-funded adventurers. The SpaceX company led by the entrepreneur Elon Musk, has successfully sent a payload into orbit and docked with the International Space Station.
It is foolish to claim, as some do, that emigration into space offers a long-term escape from Earth's problems. Nowhere in our solar system offers an environment even as clement as the Antarctic or the top of Everest. Nonetheless, a century or two from now, small groups of intrepid adventurers may be living independent from the Earth. Whatever ethical constraints we impose here on the ground, we should surely wish such pioneers good luck in genetically modifying their progeny to adapt to alien environments: the post-human era would then begin. Neil Armstrong, the quiet hero, would then indeed have prefigured "one giant leap for mankind".
Cuentan sus
compañeros de la NASA, que Neil
Armstrong era con diferencia el astronauta más reservado de carácter de todo aquel grupo de elegidos para
ir a la Luna, y también el que más sangre fría demostraba.
Piloto de vocación e
ingeniero aeronáutico de carrera, cuentan los que le conocieron que siempre
pareció que Armstrong tuvo a la muerte rondando, más la suerte siempre estuvo
de su parte.
Siendo comandante de
la misión Gemini 8 junto a David Scott, su
cápsula sufrió un fallo en los impulsores mientras estaban acoplados a un
módulo de prueba en órbita, esto causó que ambas naves comenzaran a girar sin
control en el vacío del espacio; Armstrong fue capaz de poner su cerebro a
funcionar en aquellas condiciones incompatibles con el razonamiento y conseguir
desacoplarse de la nave sin sufrir daños y realizar una reentrada de emergencia
salvando su vida y la de su compañero. Ningún astronauta que
posteriormente pasó por esa misma prueba en los simuladores fue capaz de acabar
tan exitosamente.
En las pruebas de
vuelo del que sería el futuro sistema de descenso del módulo lunar (prueba
realizada en las instalaciones de la NASA años antes del Apollo 11), al aparato
le falló la propulsión y se estrelló veloz y estrepitosamente contra el suelo,
tan sólo instantes antes Armstrong había sido capaz de eyectar su asiento y
salvarse de milagro.
A segundos de
aterrizar en la Luna a punto estuvo de no poder posarse porque el terreno no
era el adecuado y para colmo se les terminaba el combustible, la única opción
era abortar peligrosamente el aterrizaje y volver a la órbita lunar, pero una
maniobra precisa y Armstrong posó al módulo lunar “Eagle” en la superficie del
Mar de la Tranquilidad mientras en Houston sudaban tinta porque sólo les
quedaba un segundo de combustible.
Por una cuestión de
casualidad pisó primero la Luna, más bien por una cuestión de movilidad interna
del módulo lunar, ambos astronautas una vez con los trajes puestos no podían
moverse dentro de la capsula y la NASA dictaminó que la única manera de iniciar
el paseo lunar era que Neil saliera primero porque era el más cercano a la
escotilla. Y así fue como humildemente se convirtió en el primer hombre en
dejar su huella en la tierra gris lunar al tiempo que decía la histórica frase
“Este es un pequeño paso para el hombre y un gran salto para la humanidad”.
Nunca le atrajo el
festejo y boato que la NASA organizó alrededor de su figura, de hecho concedía
muy pocas entrevistas y siguió siendo una persona de carácter reservado que
trabajó casi toda su vida al margen de la prensa, primero en la NASA como
ingeniero y más tarde en una compañía aeronáutica privada. Para su compañero Buzz Aldrin dejó las apariciones, las fiestas y la
atención mediática. Nunca se comportó como si hubiera hecho lo que hizo, a
saber, lanzarse a la aventura del espacio más grande que el hombre ha conocido,
embutidos en una nave no más amplia que una furgoneta confiando en una
tecnología en pañales, en las mentes pensantes de los ingenieros, en las leyes
de la física, en sus propias capacidades y en la suerte claro.
Paradojas de la vida, no tuvo foto de sí mismo en la superficie lunar, pero tampoco le importó, su nombre ya estaría para
siempre en las páginas de la historia.
El 25 de Agosto,
con 82 años, una rutinaria operación de corazón hizo que la muerte no admitiese
más prórrogas y se lo llevó.
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