Reaching for the Stars

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One of the many remarkable aspects of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon is that it was launched just 40 years ago today.

Children in British schools are taught to look far back in history – way beyond the lifetimes of their grandparents – for examples of great adventures.

Shakespeare left this world in 1616, Magellan sailed for another shore in 1521... But Neil Armstrong, the first man in human history to walk on the moon, is living quietly and shunning publicity.

When we watch the grainy footage of the moon landings, see the images of the men in white shirts at ground control, and hear the jubilation which swept so many corners of the planet at this achievement, all of it seems from another time.

It was an era when the spirits of science and adventure danced and took humanity beyond the boundaries of what earlier ages thought possible.

Could so profoundly expensive a project be justified today?

Now, we use vast sums of money to keep banks afloat – not to send men on missions of epic discovery which would make Sir Francis Drake gyrate.

The most advanced hardware is not use to propel capsules to the further reaches of the solar system but to guide bombs to the homes of our enemies (which, judging by the regular reports of civilians in Afghanistan who are fired at by unmanned devices, is a technology very far from perfection).

It is true Nasa’s exploits were powered by Cold War rivalry with Russia as much as propulsion rockets, yet space flight reveals a glimpse of the Earth in which the lines we draw on maps do not exist. It was this sight of our blue and green world which kick-started the modern environmental movement, but recent decades seem dominated by distractions from the pursuit of common progress.

It is a grim irony that 30 years ago today Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq. The West would spend considerable time and effort supporting him in a war against his neighbouring Islamic republic before invading Iraq twice.

President Richard Nixon, who congratulated the astronauts on their return, would become enmeshed in the Watergate scandal and America’s cultural and political divides would rupture into gapping fissures in the subsequent decades.

If China does plough money into its own space programme we can expect the United States to rekindle lunar and Martian ambitions.

President Obama is understood to be fan of space exploration. He also sees it as a personal mission to unite his nation and transform America’s image abroad.

There are probably wiser ways to spend cash in an era of austerity – and disease and poverty are there to be battled – but it would be an incredible thing to see a human to walk on Mars. It would prove we can still make history.