COSMIC RELIEF by David Grinspoon
ON JULY 19TH, I headed down to the
National Mall at dusk for a 17-minute
show entitled “Apollo 50: Go for the
Moon,” which the National Air and
Space Museum had commissioned. I
went with some trepidation. How could
they possibly honor Apollo 11 in a way
that would live up to the magnitude of
the mission? As I’ve written (S&T: July
2016, p. 16), Apollo 11 was an event of
evolutionary signifi cance, akin to the
moment some 60,000 years ago when
humans fi rst left Africa.
I arrived as daylight was fading.
The 363-foot (110-meter) Saturn V
rocket was projected onto the 555-foot
Washington Monument. Klieg lights
pointed up at just the right angle to
facilitate the remarkably good illu-
sion, and full darkness fell just before
the show began. Fueled up and ready
to launch, the colossal virtual rocket
vented steam, just like the real thing. It
looked extremely cool. But what would
happen now? Obviously, the monu-
ment wouldn’t launch into space. So
how could what was to follow not be
anticlimactic?
A PA system blasted sounds from
Mission Control 50 years ago, enhancedA Fitting
Apollo
Monument
Fifty years after the fact, the
National Mall hosts a spectacular,
and deeply moving, celebration.by a spacey soundtrack. A hush fell over
the Mall as we heard that technicians
had closed the protective cover over
the hatch and the cabin air had been
purged. Beneath the rocket, a 40-foot-
wide recreation of the historic Kennedy
Space Center countdown clock suddenly
illuminated and began ticking down
from 5 minutes. A series of enormous
screens fl anking the monument showed
original footage of the scene around the
launch — the crowds, Mission Control,
and the astronauts themselves.
Then the famous inspirational words
of John F. Kennedy, spoken at Rice Uni-
versity in 1962, rang out: “[W]e meet
in an hour of change and challenge, in
a decade of hope and fear, in an age of
both knowledge and ignorance.” The
monument itself began displaying a
sequence of images as the great orator
recounted humanity’s long path from
caves, through the printing press, the
steam engine, and the Space Age, and
told us why “we choose to go to the
Moon in this decade and do the other
things, not because they are easy, but
because they are hard.. .”
After the vast digital clock counted
down to 1 minute, we were “live,”watching the steaming spacecraft with
the sounds of the penultimate count-
down. During the fi nal 10 seconds we
all screamed along. The mighty rocket
engines fountained fl ame. No, the
monument didn’t lift off, but it served
as a towering screen where footage of
the slow, fi ery rise, the acceleration into
the blue, and the dramatic fi rst-stage
separation all “aired” to brilliant effect.
It was simply glorious. I felt wistful,
humbled, and proud. Was there a dry
eye on the grounds? It was too dark to
see, and anyway I had to keep wiping
my own tears away just to follow along.
In this divisive time, so rife with
anxiety about the future, it was a
special gift to be among that throng
of thousands all cheering and gasping
in unison, embracing a common goal.
It was wonderful to be reminded, so
viscerally, of a time when the future
felt full of promise, and to remember
that when we pull together we can solve
seemingly insurmountable problems
and achieve any future we want.■ Contributing Editor DAVID GRIN-
SPOON is a senior scientist at the Plan-
etary Science Institute. MATT
HEW^CARREIRO^ /SHUTTERSTOCK.COM14 NOVEMBER 2019 • SKY & TELESCOPE
An image of the
Saturn V that lofted
Apollo 11 into space
graces the east face of
the Washington Monu-
ment on July 18, 2019.