Over the moon: Apollo missions dominated, Artemis II drew muted attention

Where the Apollo missions routinely hogged the headlines, Artemis II, whose mission was consequential for science, usually made it to second lead, sometimes third

When Neil Armstrong, 38, became the first man to walk on the moon, I was among the millions around the world who followed this path-breaking event closely. But likely not in the same way as the better informed. All of six and a half at the time, I was convinced by my dad that we could see Armstrong walking on that sliver of moon clearly visible from our Calcutta apartment (no smog in those days): “See, he’s tying his laces now.” 

It says much for the powers of parental suggestion that: Yes! There was Armstrong interrupting his giant leap for mankind to perform this mundane task. 

Later, photographs in the special Life magazine issue showed Armstrong doing little more than planting the American flag on the surface of the moon. Since parents were authoritarian figures in those days, I didn’t think to question my father on this point.

None of this diminished the romance and naïve wonder of those early lunar ventures, when we were emotionally invested in the success of the Apollo missions. 

When Apollo 13 faced a life-threatening crisis, our school held special prayers twice a day for their safe return — including a thanksgiving prayer when they made it back after a harrowing five days. How earnestly we prayed! Soon after, a grand uncle introduced me to Tintin comics, and it was Destination Moon  and Explorers on the Moon, produced a decade before the Apollo missions, that I re-read the most. 

The Apollo missions were popular for their novelty but also because the US was at the peak of its popularity, the land of opportunity, with welcoming immigration laws that attracted the world’s best and brightest. Except for dour leftist grownups and Soviet Union admirers, most people were rooting for those fresh-faced Americans — Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins — to succeed. 

The desultory popular interest in Artemis II, the first crewed flight that ventured where no man (or woman) had gone before, could not have been starker. Artemis II went and returned safely, attracting mild approbation for its multicultural and gender-balanced crew and spectacular photographs of earth from deep space. “Trust us, you look amazing; you look beautiful,” said Victor Glover, a schmaltzy, politically correct line that promptly earned Artemis II a spoof on Saturday Night Live. 

But the global mood was perfunctorily celebratory when Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen left for their mission on April 1. Attention on the successful Pacific Ocean splashdown 10 days later was overwhelmed by concerns centred on a body of water just 39 km wide and roughly 13,000 km away. Here an unnecessary war started by a maverick US president catastrophically disrupted global supply chains, caused crude oil and gas prices to surge dizzyingly and, in India, precipitated a fuel crisis that closed thousands of small establishments and sent hundreds of migrants back to their villages.

Where the Apollo missions routinely hogged the headlines, Artemis II, whose mission was undoubtedly consequential for science, usually made it to second lead, sometimes third. On the day it returned, global attention was feverishly focused on impending peace talks in Islamabad. 

Yet, the Apollo missions were also launched against the backdrop of another pointless war initiated by the US, when campus and nationwide protests over the Vietnam War dominated the news cycle. But the fallout of that war was not global; it was the Vietnamese and Americans who were tragically counting their dead. Ironically, however, it was the growing costs of Vietnam and diminishing public interest — 12 Americans had walked on the moon between 1969 and 1972 — that prompted Nasa to terminate the Apollo missions. In any case, Star Wars soon shifted popular interest way beyond the lunar landscape. 

By then, too, the seamier sides of the space race were becoming evident. As the US’ reputation sank in global estimation under Nixon and Kissinger, the fact that the driving force behind the Apollo missions was Wernher von Braun, a Nazi criminal, gained wide currency. Von Braun headed Hitler’s V2 rocket programme — an early prototype of the ballistic missiles being deployed so assiduously in West Asia today — that had employed prison and Jewish labour working in horrific conditions in underground caverns. After the war, von Braun was not only spirited away, while other leading Nazis were threatened by the noose, but also granted US citizenship. 

For me, the frequency of space flight, with private operators offering trips into the big beyond, the serial tragedies of Challenger and Columbia, and the alarming proliferation of satellites and debris in space gradually detracted from the mystery and allure of the space-human interface. But now, Nasa is exploring a manned mission to Mars. Who knows, there could be a kid out there who will be absolutely certain to have spotted little green men greeting inhabitants from Terra Firma.

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