Learning about the space program is extremely emotional for me. This series begins with the inception of the American space program, the Mercury missions, and just continues onward. So far, I've only gotten through Apollo 11. And I desperately want to keep watching, but I felt that the right thing to do was to take the time to write about what I'm feeling on here. I need to capture these emotions while they're fresh.
The story of our space program is just awe-inspiring. The unmatched feats of science and engineering that made every outlandish element of it possible boggle my mind. When I watch this series, which brilliantly weaves in more recent interviews with archive footage, technical footage, and home movies of the people involved, it's almost like I'm transported into that time. (In fact, the Apollo missions especially are very Mad Men-esque, and it makes me hugely excited for when Apollo 11 happens in this or the next season. Come to think of it, it would make an excellent ending for the show...)
The most uplifting part of it all is the stark realization that none of the people involved were sure it was going to work. At any moment, it was entirely possible that any of the gigantic rockets used in these programs would explode, killing everyone involved. Listening to interviews of engineers involved with the first few Mercury missions, which had the goal just of getting a person into space (and then orbit), you get the sense that they were actually a little surprised when the rockets didn't just explode on the launchpad.
I'm old enough now to realize that everybody goes through life without really having any idea what he or she is doing; that we all just sort of muddle through, and in our own eyes, we're just faking understanding well enough to get by. Even though most of us are definitely competent in many areas, we never really feel that way; we never stop being the nervous kid we started as. We never leave our first day at work behind us, and experience just lets us temporarily quiet that voice of insecurity and do our jobs anyway.
Still, knowing all that and taking it to heart, I was absolutely floored to feel the exact same sentiment in these interviews with NASA engineers. Every single mission involved inventing dozens, if not hundreds, of new techniques to deal with all of the various obstacles traveling to space presented. And it turned out that they were incredibly lucky, because, even though nearly every solution they came up with worked, they had no idea whether it would or not until it was actually tested in space. They were actually flying by the seat of their pants.
The series shows footage from the command centers during all the missions, and the tension and excitement in the faces of the engineers there is just infectious. Even knowing in advance which missions succeeded and which failed, I was deeply moved by the relief that washes through every person there whenever some astronauts return to Earth alive.
But the thing that drove me to write all this wasn't the Mercury missions. It was the Apollo missions -- that most ambitious of any human undertaking. The realization of an ancient, unthinkable dream. An escape from destiny. The sense that the limits we had imagined do not exist.
Apollo 8 was the first that essentially brought me to tears. The mission of Apollo 8 was to fly to the moon, orbit it ten times, and return to the Earth. The exciting and scary part of the mission was that it involved flying around to the far side of the moon, which would mean losing all contact with the Earth for half of each orbit. During that communications blackout, if anything went wrong, the command center would have no way of knowing. If the command module crashed on the far side of the moon, it would just be lost. There was an incredible amount of tension when they first lost contact, although we now have the advantage of being able to view the recordings the astronauts were making while they were on the far side, showing that they were having a pretty good time despite being cut off from all contact with the rest of humanity. When the astronauts came out from behind the moon, re-establishing contact at exactly the moment that had been planned, there were cheers in the command center. But that's not what moved me so.
On its fourth trip around the moon, Apollo 8's orbit carried it in such a way that the crew was treated to the first human-witnessed Earthrise:
Everyone should know this photo already. But to know the story behind it, to see it being experienced for the first time, to feel the excitement and wonder that the astronauts and command center engineers shared (and the whole world) -- well, it elevated the experience for me beyond a simple appreciation of beauty. It brought me to a moment of catharsis as I understood the true power of the human spirit as one of freedom; a rejection of all bonds, be they man-made or natural.
It didn't matter that some people said this would be impossible.
It didn't matter that some people said this would be pointless.
All that mattered in the end was that a large enough group of people came together, understood what humanity was truly capable of, and fought against every obstacle to bring it to life.
It made my heart cry out to be a part of that -- not the space program, but all human endeavor that denies the artificial limits we might imagine to be built-in to the human condition. Whatever I do in my life, I want it to be in the service of expanding what humanity is capable of. I want to find those naysayers, those people who sneer and ask "why bother," and rub their closed-minded faces in it.
Today, I had an epiphany. Thank you, NASA.
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