On this day 45 years ago, a grainy inverted black and white picture appeared on TV screens around the word. In Australia, it is the morning of Monday July 21st 1969. Around the nation, schools, factories and workplaces pause to watch. In an instant the picture rights itself to show an image never seen before; the figure of a space suited man carefully descending a ladder; the black of space and the stark lunar terrain merging to form a surreal backdrop. The picture coming from Tranquility Base through the Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station in the ACT makes a barely perceptible jump, becoming clearer as the lone man continues his downward trek. After endless seconds, the last rung of the ladder is reached. The man, as if in slow motion, jumps down to the landing pad of the Lunar Module Eagle. Just 12 years after the first satellite is launched, the moment that countless scientists, theoreticians, engineers and technicians have dreamed of is finally at hand.
At that moment, the thoughts and prayers of 600 million people watching around the world are turned to the heavens for that one man so far removed from the rest of humanity as he takes one small step…A step that forever alters the course of human history.
On this day the world stopped, looked up and marveled as the first men walked on the surface of the Moon. Surely with this feat, the road to the stars now lay open. The shackles that had bound us to the Earth since creation had been broken. On this day, the planets and stars felt closer than ever.
Within days of the Apollo landing the unmanned Mariner 6 flies by Mars returning close up images of the red planet, Vice President, Spiro Agnew calls for a manned landing on Mars by the Year 2000 and Pan Am is selling tickets for flights to the Moon… Surely the vision promised by 2001 A Space Odyssey of lunar settlements and orbiting Hilton space hotels must only be a few short years away….
45 years later, we are still waiting. The vision, unfulfilled. Whilst a magnificent armada of unmanned spaceships have, with breathtaking clarity revealed to us the worlds that comprise our solar system, we are still to glimpse these sights with our own eyes.
Since the beginning of time man has sought to expand his horizons. Just as those who first sought the Great Southern Land in the 16 and 1700’s accepted great risk in the pursuit of knowledge, so we in the 21st century must accept similar risks to meet the challenges of space if we are not to be forever chained to our home world.
On this 45th anniversary; with the first test launch of the Orion spacecraft imminent, the opportunity is at hand for us to once again reach for the stars. The knowledge to go forward exists in laboratories and scientific institutions around the world. The crew for the Mars 1 missions are, at this moment in our educational institutions.
Exploration beyond Low Earth Orbit will never be easy. It will involve missions of a complexity and scope unimaginable at the time of Apollo and that even now are at the cutting edge of technology. Neither will it be a feat achieved by any one nation; the costs alone are prohibitive to any fiscally responsible government. Only through a multinational collaborative effort, sharing knowledge and resources can the goals of planetary exploration and lunar settlement be achieved.
A precedent for such an effort exists through the development and operation by 16 nations of the International Space Station. Through our experiences on Space Station we have learned to design, construct and utilize a permanently manned orbital station. It is time now to capitalize on that experience of International collaboration to further our horizons beyond Low Earth orbit.
All that is lacking is the resolution and commitment to proceed. The challenge will be great, but the cost of lost opportunity through prolonged inaction will, in the longer term be far greater.
The last flight of the Space Shuttle in July 2011, delivered to the International Space Station a United States flag that flew on the first shuttle flight. It is to return with the next US launched crew to visit the station, then to depart once more with the first crew to head out beyond Low Earth Orbit.
Today this flag remains on Space Station…Waiting to be retrieved.
Let us accept the challenge this flag represents. Lets us go forward… back to the Moon on to Mars and the planets beyond.