Moonwalking forty years on
SIDRA KRANZ MOSHINSKY
SAY “moonwalk” and the immediate association is Michael Jackson. Hardly surprising given that at the height of the media feeding frenzy, his signature step was being replayed across screens almost incessantly.
There seems little doubt that in popular perception, Jackson has eclipsed the original moonwalkers. I suspect many young people would struggle to tell you about Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.
As a child, I felt a strange sense of connection to man’s first walk on the moon, derived in most part from a link as tenuous as the proximity in time between my birth and that event. When I used to see the great moments of 1969 listed, the landing of Apollo II always ranked highly (along with Vietnam protests and Woodstock).
It was President John Kennedy’s vision that the United States should conquer space through a successful moon landing and return to earth. His vision was inspired to some extent by the age-old fascination with what lies beyond, but was mostly fuelled by the desire to defeat the Russians in another Cold War battle.
The goal was achieved, but Kennedy did not live to see it. Instead, the stardust fell on President Nixon. Along with millions around the world who watched events closely, it was Nixon who heard the now iconic words from Armfield, “The Eagle has landed” and a couple of hours later, when the astronauts actually alighted from their roving lunar vehicle, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Nixon’s reaction to the event in 1969 was to claim it was “the greatest week in the history of the world since the creation, because as a result of what happened in this week, the world is bigger, infinitely”.
Despite being a religion with its centre of gravity fixed firmly on Earth, or perhaps because of this, Judaism focuses carefully on the rotations of the celestial bodies, the moon in particular. While Rosh Chodesh is less celebrated these days, it was once a major event punctuating the year, sanctifying time.
According to the Midrash, at the time of creation the sun and the moon were the same size -— “the two great lights” -— but the moon complained about two kings having to share one crown and, as a result, was made the “lesser light”.
Nevertheless, the Jews of Chelm deemed the moon more important because during the day you don’t need the sun. But in the darkness of night, the moon’s light serves a useful purpose.
Over the centuries, a number of Jewish astronomers have contributed to the field of natural science. Abraham Ibn Ezra, a 12-century Spanish-Jewish poet and scholar, has a moon crater named after him, Abenezra, in recognition of his work on the movement of planets.
Another crater is named Rabbi Levi, believed to be in remembrance of Rabbi Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides) for his innovative scientific research. Albert Einstein has a crater named in his honour and Judith Resnik, the first Jewish astronaut and second US woman to fly in space, who died tragically in the Challenger disaster of 1986, has one in her honour.
Billions of dollars have been spent launching humans into space. There are those who question the wisdom of such a program, given that little has been gained in practical terms. Even Teflon and the non-stick frypan turn out to have been precursors rather than products of the moon landing. On the other hand, our knowledge of the universe continues to expand.
In this, the International Year of Astronomy, coinciding with the 400th anniversary of the first use of an astronomical telescope by Galileo, people around the world are invited to wonder at the marvels above us.
Space travel and tourism could shape how we view our planet. “For those who have seen the earth from space, and for the hundreds and perhaps thousands more who will”, writes NASA astronaut Donald Williams, “the experience most certainly changes your perspective. The things that we share in our world are far more valuable than those which divide us.”
Perhaps this is the message that Petr Ginz, a 14-year-old boy imprisoned in Theresienstadt, was attempting to convey when he sketched planet Earth as seen from the moon’s landscape around 1943, sometime before he was killed at Auschwitz. And why Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli astronaut in space, chose to take this sketch aboard his doomed trip on the Columbia in 2003. From out there, differences simply become insignificant.
Sidra Kranz Moshinsky is a Melbourne teacher and writer.
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