Here in Wapakoneta, however, the words carved into the stone simply read:
There is no specific date given for his death because no one is exactly sure when the last of the oxygen ran out. The calculations have been made and debated a thousand times, but no one can say with absolute certainty which side of midnight he and Buzz died, so it is not writ in stone.
At their own request Armstrong and Aldrin ended all contact with Mission Control for their final minutes or hours. With the eyes and ears of all the world upon them, they were granted the one thing that their controllers back here on Earth could afford them: the dignity of a private passing.
Standing before the Wapakoneta statue, the silver-haired man reflected on how technology had changed beyond recognition in the intervening forty years. He remembered how the row after row of screens at NASA’s Mission Control in Houston had seemed the very pinnacle of what computers could achieve. The safest pair of hands one could hope to be in. Now his washing machine contained more technological know-how than all of Mission Control’s computers back then put together.
People from all over the world have visited Wapakoneta over the years and left flowers, cards and messages at the foot of the plinth. Many have run their fingers across Armstrong’s name. These literally touching tributes have smoothed the once crisply carved letters’ edges: a form of human-made erosion. They will be worn away long before his and Aldrin’s footprints on the windless Moon. The two astronauts have become the icons and inspiration to adventurers and explorers in all walks of life. On that day in July 2009, there were more small personal tributes carpeting the ground than ever, along with official tributes from organizations, “personalities” and nations. The silver-haired man found himself leaning over the red rope and scanning the cards for familiar names.
Now he turned and walked back towards his car. Seeing him coming, the overweight driver had struggled out of his seat and opened his door for him. The man climbed in. There would be services throughout the US that weekend to remember the only two human beings ever to have walked on ground not belonging to their native planet, their having paid the ultimate price for that privilege.
The events of 1969 were for ever etched into the silver-haired man’s memory. When he closed his eyes in the back of that car – as the last vestiges of warmth disappeared with the sun – the images were still acid-burnt into his retina, barely faded with time. He could remember everything so clearly. There was a cavernous void in the pit of his stomach.
He was not one of those who had huddled around a tiny television set at home or at a friend’s or relative’s, as was the experience of so many back then. He had sat alone, waiting like no other.
It is 20 July 1969 and the world watches, waits and listens as the lunar module Eagle separates from the command module Columbia and – after what seems a nail-biting eternity – lands on the Moon.
Time passes. Now, bouncing down the ladder of Eagle and onto the Moon’s dusty surface, Neil Armstrong speaks the immortal lines: “One small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind” and changes history in a way that it has never been changed before.
Satellites may have been sent into orbit. Men and women may have flown into space and even have walked in it, but this was the first time a human being had left a footprint on the Moon. The unreachable had been reached. Suddenly a million other possibilities come into flower.
Suddenly the name of Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, becomes secondary to that of Neil Armstrong, the first human on the Moon. Until now the space race has not been a proper race at all, with Russia easily winning at every leveclass="underline" first satellite, first person (a man), first woman, first space walk… with the US’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration lagging far behind. Now Russia’s bubble has been burst. All other firsts will be all but forgotten. The rules have changed. Now the US can claim the ultimate prize…
…a prize about to be tarnished by tragedy.
After a total of twenty-one hours on the surface, it’s time for Armstrong and Aldrin to leave the Moon and to rejoin Michael Collins, who is orbiting it in the command module. It is 1.54 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on 21 July 1969… but nothing happens.
There is no graceful departure. No arched trajectory through space. Instead, a damp squib and a sinking heart. In Armstrong’s own words, the engines of the module fail to “light up”. Despite repeated efforts on the Moon and suggestions from Houston, the ghastly possibility that the astronauts may be doomed begins to sink in.
Then it becomes a reality. The module and the men inside are going nowhere.
Time slows to a standstill.
The empty hours are filled with mind-numbing speculation. The television is filled with talking heads not really knowing what to say. The world waits.
Then comes the announcement. The president of the United States of America is about to make an address. People tune in across the globe.
Waiting.
They are finally met by an image of a sweating President Nixon seated at his desk in the Oval Office. His voice breaking with emotion, he begins to speak the words he hoped and prayed he’d never have to utter.
“Fate,” he says, “has ordained that the men who went to the Moon to explore in peace will stay on the Moon to rest in peace.”
This single sentence – these twenty-four words – sends shock waves around the world. All sense of triumph and euphoria is snuffed out in an instant. The sickening possibility – unspoken by most – has become a dreadful reality.
To some the shock is so great that the next few sentences of the president are lost. He refers to Armstrong and Aldrin as “these brave men” and talks of sacrifice. Then, with shoulders back and real tears in his eyes, Nixon stares straight into the camera and says, “In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.”
One of the billions watching the broadcast is William Safire. He sits alone in a borrowed office, shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow, the only light coming from the flickering cathode ray tube. In his hands he holds a memo headed In Event of Moon Disaster. Silently he mouths the words as Nixon speaks them.
“Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man’s search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain foremost in our hearts.”
These are Safire’s words, crafted by his hands and put in the president’s mouth. This is one presidential speech everyone in the White House had hoped would never have to be delivered.
The broadcast is nearly at an end. Nixon is reading the final words on the autocue: “For every human being who looks up at the Moon in the nights to come—” Then he breaks off. He struggles for something personal to say, not something pre-planned for a worst-case scenario, but something immediate and from the heart. He looks down at the copy of the speech on the Oval Office desk: typed and double-spaced. He lifts it up, shuffling the pages. Then he utters possibly the most famous words of his presidency.
“My fellow Americans,” he says. “These brave men died not for their country but for humanity. Their deeds and their sacrifice were for all mankind.”
After the address, there are the phone calls, conducted off the international stage, away from the eyes of the world’s media. Nixon has already made calls to the widows of Armstrong and Aldrin. He did that before the broadcast. As commander-in-chief, the president has had to make such calls before – to widows of other fallen servicemen – but never to the wives of such a unique brand of hero. Just twenty-four hours previously, Armstrong was the most talked-about man on the planet. Now Aldrin’s name can be added alongside his. Had things turned out differently, he might just have been remembered as the second man to walk on the Moon, simply following in another’s footsteps. As it is, their names will be linked for ever, as their bodies lie together in another place.