Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8 (47 page)

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Authors: Robert Zimmerman

Tags: #History, #United States, #20th Century, #test

BOOK: Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8
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Page 260
In 1991, the earth's atmosphere had undergone a number of violent upheavals. In January the Iraqi military had fled Kuwait, igniting 732 oil wells as they left. For months these wells burned, sending tons of smoke into the air. Some experts worried that the black clouds could affect the earth's climate. When
Atlantis
reached orbit in late November the last well fire had been quenched only two weeks earlier.
2
Then, in June, the Mount Pinatubo volcano exploded, sending columns of ash and smoke twenty-five miles into the air, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people, destroying whole cities, and dumping over two cubic miles of volcanic ash across a million-and-a-half square mile area from Indonesia to Vietnam.
3
Within three weeks Pinatubo's plume had completely encircled the globe, spanning fifty degrees of latitude worldwide.
4
What amazed Gregory was how little visible evidence remained from earth orbit of these ferocious events. Only five months after Pinatubo's eruption he could see little atmospheric evidence of that gigantic and furious explosion. Though he knew intellectually that the eruption's giant aerosol cloud still permeated the atmosphere worldwide, he could not see it.
Even more surprising was what he saw of the Kuwaiti oil fires. Though Gregory could still see some evidence of the fires' smoke in the atmosphere above the Middle East, he was amazed to see it diminish each day. By the time he returned to earth the air actually seemed clearer. "I equated [the earth] to a cat cleaning itself," Fred told me. When it became dirty it just licked itself clean."
The Apollo astronauts had looked at the earth and had seen a tiny, frail object in the blackness of space. The Apollo astronauts, however, were flying in a tiny, very frail capsule, voyaging far beyond the utmost limits of human capability. Unconsciously, they were projecting their own fragility back on to a distance earth.
Fred Gregory, however, floated in his shirtsleeves in a true spaceship, as hardy and as safe as any combat jet. He did not feel himself constantly vulnerable to certain death, mere inches away. Nor did his experience push the envelope of human experience farther than was prudent or safe. Instead, he was doing what humans now considered risky but ordinary work, though

 

Page 261
The crew of shuttle 51-B floats in orbit, May, 1985. Fred Gregory is on the far right.
that work did extend the human experience outward into regions that were little explored and newly won.
Hence, Fred could look down at the earth and see another vision, that of a large
planet
with a complex ecology, able to balance and maintain itself, despite terrible afflictions. Long after every human had died, Gregory knew that that planet would go on renewing itself.
That Gregory's perspective was different from the astronauts of thirty years ago is hardly surprising. While his early lack of interest in space exploration might have reflected the lean years of the 1970's when few in America were interested in exploration his desire to go into space in the 1980's was a clear precursor of the space boom happening this very moment. Not only has NASA sent probes to Mars, the moon, and Saturn for the first time in decades, the first components of the American-led international space

 

Page 262
The clear blue Pacific Ocean, west of the Philippines, as seen by Fred Gregory, 
1991. The light haze in the center of the picture is the sun's reflection.
station have been completed, and should Russian funding problems finally be solved, it will reach orbit sometime within the next year.
More significant is the boom in private space development. Revenues from commercial space launches in 1997 totaled $85 billion, and are expected to increase to $121 billion by the year 2000.
5
One company has launched a constellation of seventy-two satellites in its plan to provide cellular telephone service anywhere in the world.
6
Another has launched eight out of a planned array of forty satellites, and a third has launched twelve of thirty-six. And in 1997, commercial launches exceeded government launches for the first time in history.
Today, private enterprise dominates the space industry. Several industry studies predict that in the next decade between 1,700 to 2,000 new satellites will

 

Page 263
be launched, with seventy percent of these commercially financed.
7
With this many satellites planned, a gigantic need has developed for new and cheaper rockets. Almost a dozen private firms are developing reusable spaceships.
8
One man, Andrew Beal, has invested a quarter of a billion dollars of his own money to develop a new expendable rocket.
9
Another businessman, Jim Benson, has formed a corporation to send an unmanned mission to a nearby asteroid, with launch expected sometime prior to February 2001. Though some might think this plan farfetched, Benson's company, SpaceDev, estimates sales in its aerospace and engineering divisions will exceed ten million dollars in 1998. According to the company's literature, ''SpaceDev believes there is pent-up demand for economical space exploration."
The new century will see a renaissance of space exploration as exciting and as challenging as the space race of the 1960's. And this rebirth will happen under the banner of freedom and private property, the very principles for which the United States fought the Cold War.
Freedom
And in Berlin, the wall is no more. Where that death strip of barbed wire and guard towers once stood are gleaming office buildings and shopping malls. No longer do foreign troops patrol the city. The only indication that remains of the forty year head-to-head conflict between capitalism and communism is a small museum one block from Checkpoint Charlie (where a giant office complex now stands). In this museum are many of the tools and equipment used by the thousands who succeeded in vaulting the Berlin Wall to freedom. Also there are testimonies to the over eight hundred people thought to have died trying to escape East Germany.
10
The Cold War is over, and the Soviet Union is a memory. As Ronald Reagan correctly predicted in 1982: "The march of freedom and democracy . . . will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history."
11
Despite Khrushchev's claim that Nixon's grandchildren would live as communists, it is Nikita's descendants who today live as capitalists, striving hard to catch up with America after more than seventy years of communist rule.

 

Page 264
Perhaps Frank Borman expressed it best. In summing up the fall of communism he said very simply, "In the final analysis, everybody wants to be
free
."
Ironically, possibly the only good legacy left by the communist dictatorship was its space program. For more than twelve years, space station
Mir
has dominated space exploration, providing a platform for science and international prestige. Even as the Soviet Union collapsed and disappeared from the earth, an abject demonstration of the failure of a centralized staterun society, its space station has lived on.
Today, the Russian government owns
Mir
, and dearly recognizes its value. In fact, the Russians have taken a decidedly capitalist approach to maintaining their entire space program. Forced to raise cash, the Russians have eagerly sold as advertisement space the walls of their mission control, much like a sports stadium. They have commercialized their launch services, offering them to private communication satellite companies.
And they have rented their space station to such Western countries as England, France, Germany, and even the United States. In exchange for substantial cash payments in the hundreds of millions of dollars, foreign astronauts have visited
Mir
and used it for training and scientific research.
In America, meanwhile, ordinary Americans still do what they have always done, despite the cultural pressure to deny the existence of a distinct American way of life. When astronaut Michael Foale returned to earth after spending four months on
Mir
, he noted that "I have, of course, thought a lot about my family . . . And my priority now is to spend more time with my young children over the next year or two . . . I'm looking forward to the adventure of learning how to walk again and live in my house with my wife and my children, get to know my wife again, date her again, maybe marry her again."
12
And Foale's replacement, David Wolf, told reporters prior to launch that while in space he would observe the Jewish Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, including fasting and prayer. Unable to attend synagogue services, Wolf pointed out that he could "still do it in mind."
13
Furthermore, during his four month stay, Wolf became the first human to vote from space, casting his ballot for local elections in Houston. A new law in Texas had made it possible for an astronaut in space to do this electronically.

 

Page 265
Jim Benson, meanwhile, in his commercial plans to explore an asteroid, intends "to make an ownership claim of the asteroid, [setting] a precedent for private property rights in space."
14
As Benson stated recently, "Any attempt by world legal bodies to limit such property rights in space will . . . be viewed not only as a 'taking' but as a threat to anyone who has any interest in going to space for work or play, or who might have a job on earth directly or indirectly related to space commercialization."
15
As always, family, freedom, and moral commitment remain deeply engrained in the American mind. These ideas permeate everything we say and do, just as they permeated everything the Apollo 8 astronauts had said and done. And such ideas still strengthen the ability of individual Americans to fulfill their dreams, whatever those dreams might be.
As we enter the third millennium, the human race will at last embark on the permanent exploration and settlement of space. No longer will we hug the coast, fearful of the vast black ocean between the planets. No longer will we see the earth as our only safe haven in a dangerous universe. Instead, we will see it as Fred Gregory does, a beautiful blueprint for the noble task of bringing the earth's vibrancy to other worlds, to make the moon blossom like a garden, to bring Mars back to life, to end the sulphuric storms of Venus and allow children to play on its windswept volcanic shores.
When we go, we should also bring with us a good blueprint for human society. Like Jim Benson, we should, as free men and women, bring with us the laws of the United States and the capitalistic and democratic principles of our country. And like Mike Foale and David Wolf, we should also infuse the future generations of space settlers with principles of family, freedom, and moral commitment.
Kennedy had said we must. And we should, not for nationalistic reasons, but because we as a nation and culture have stumbled upon a good formula for human society. We aren't better than anyone else, and surely have many faults and weaknesses. And though we have made our share of evil decisions in our history, far more often we have done right for ourselves and for others.
As surely as the sun has risen this morning, and as surely as it will set this evening, the human race is going to the stars. Though we might do it for the adventure and profit and the search for knowledge, we will eventually

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