39 years ago
July 21st (in this country) 1969 - A human put a boot-print on a place other than Earth. The Sea of Tranquility, on our moon. Go outside and look at it. A big brilliant white ball that hangs in our skies at night. There’s a small round grey patch, just left of centre, just above the equator. That is Mare Tranquilitatis. There, 39 years ago, a man climbed down a ladder, stood, for a moment, on the one of the spacecrafts footpads - stuck the toe of one boot into the grey shadowed soil, then his whole foot, and then picked up his other foot and stood - for the first time - on another body. He and a colleague spent a few short hours walking around, taking photographs, collecting samples, before climbing back into the spacecraft, launching back into orbit, rendezvousing with their faithful friend, and coming home.
I was born nine and a half years later. I missed the excitement of Apollo. For people 15 years older than I - those days were one of those rare ‘ I remember where I was when….’ moments. I don’t have many of those - the death of Ayrton Senna is one, Thrust SSC setting the first supersonic land speed record is another. Isn’t that strange, a complete space nut, but I’ve not experienced one of those true paradigm shifting moments of humanity in space. Vostok 1, Apollo 8, Apollo 11 - and since then, we have had nothing to match. No heros, no genuinely globally uniting events that anyone and everyone can experience for what it is - exploration, bravery, brilliance.
This December, I celebrate the 9th anniversary of my 21st birthday ( I turn 30 ). Yet the political will to give my generation that same privilege of experiencing another first is lacking. We’ve grown timid, scared, trapped 400km above the Earth. The moon is still there, the artifacts sat on the surface tell the story of our brief visits there in far more clarity and detail than the slowly dimming memories of those who actually went.
The moonwalkers, the 12 heroes, 9 of which are still with us, are getting old. They’re all more than 70. What sort of global community are we that takes the first step in manned exploration, and yet lets the experience evaporate from living memory before taking another? The first person to walk on Mars is almost certainly alive today. But it is unlikely that any of the men who walked upon the moon will be alive to see them plant a bootprint in the ochre soils of Mars.
So shy is the western world of being bold, brave, and doing things that are dangerous or difficult, that we lack the social and political arrogance to ignore the moaning media that measures everything by how many hospital wards it can build. I live in a country that spent more building a giant white tent full of utter crap called the Millennium Dome, than it’s prepared to spend on exploration of our solar system.
That embarrasses me. We should be bold, put our hands in our very large pockets, and start exploring like our friends on the other side of the pond. Maybe not people, but their electronic avatars. For the price of the accounting error in the average large civil engineering project - the UK could build something as extraordinary as MRO, or MER. We have the cash, the talent, the ability to do these things. We’re just too damn scared of failing.
Was Shackleton scared? Was Scott scared? Were Hillary and Tensing scared? You bet they were. But they did it anyway, and in every case, they had adventures that words can only begin to explain. In every case, heroes were made, inspiration poured forth like an enormous waterfall.
Spirit and Opportunity have covered a handfull of acres of Mars, leaving temporary wheel tracks on the surface at Gusev and Meridiani. Their tracks will not be there when a person finally reaches those locations. But the rovers will - dust piled up against the wheels, a little dune field downwind, IDD probably deployed on a target, camera pointed up. They are two spacecraft nearer to my heart that is probably healthy for 180 kg of metal, wires and circuitry should. Yet they are not enough. My generation needs an Apollo. My generation needs the will, the courage and the fortitude to stand up, look up, and strike out in the Spirit of exploration that those two rovers have done so well. It will be difficult, but as some guy once said - we do these things because they are difficult.
The wheeltracks will be long gone - but it’s about damn time we set about making some bootprints.
My name is Douglas Ellison. I am 29, and I challenge my generation to do what our parents did.
Be bold.