Because It Is Hard
There’s more than one Michael Collins.
There’s even more than one famous Michael Collins.
So, when I saw a song titled “For Michael Collins, Jeffrey and Me” on Jethro Tull’s Benefit album, I never seriously imagined the song was about the astronaut Michael Collins, who orbited the Moon in the Apollo 11 command module while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin flew the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) down to the surface and walked on the Sea of Tranquility.
I played the record a number of times without ever paying much attention to that song. But I had it playing softly one night as I fell asleep, and in a lucid moment between sleep and waking, I heard this:
I’m with you, LEM,
Though it’s a shame
That it had to be you.The mother ship
Is just a blip
On your trip made for two.I’m with you, boys,
So please employ
Just a little extra care.It’s on my mind,
I’m left behind
When I should have been there
Walking with you.
That was how I felt about the entire Apollo program: I wanted to be there. I wanted to experience zero gravity in orbit, and on the way to the moon. I wanted to glide in lunar one-sixth gravity over the rocks and craters of an alien world. I wanted to see the far side of the moon with my own eyes, and see the earth — the entire earth — as a blue marble floating in black space.
I think I missed the point. I think almost everyone misses the point.
One-sixth gravity is fun. Lunar rocks answered persistent questions about the origin of the earth and the entire solar system. The miniature on-board computers were technological breaththroughs. The earth, seen whole from a quarter million miles away, is poetry.
But I think the most important thing about Apollo was not the fun, the science, the technology, or even the mind-altering change of perspective it made possible. All those things are by-products.
“We choose to go to the moon in this decade,” said John F. Kennedy, and to confront other difficult challenges, “not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”
Should we return to the Moon now? Should we set a goal of landing a man on Mars? I don’t know. How hard are they?
Is it possible to find a challenge here on earth that will demand the best we have to give? Can we find a challenge that we are willing to accept, unwilling to postpone, and which we truly intend to win? Can we do anything with the realization that this planet, our home, is a small jewel in a vast emptiness?
Happy Moon Day.