We Are All Made of Stars

Earthrise, December 1968 from NASA. Images of the Earth from outer space engendered a new respect for the fragility of our planet.

I was fortunate to catch In the Shadow of the Moon tonight at the Naro. The film captures the images and memories of the astronauts who visited the Moon, and explores the world’s response to their voyage. Rather than employing a narrator, the documentary consists solely of period footage and recent interviews with the likes of Buzz Aldrin and Jim Lovell — an arrangement that allows the wonder of the Apollo program to speak for itself. Words truly fail the astronauts as they describe seeing the first Earthrise and leaving the first footprints on another heavenly body.

It seems incredible that, before the age of pervasive computing, mankind was able to focus such a range of technical and imaginative skills into escaping the sphere to which it has been confined for hundreds of thousands of years. But ought it seem incredible? I wish that scientific achievement always demanded the rapt attention of all mankind, that progress captured the imagination and spurred education. Thomas Friedman has long warned of waning American competitiveness due to the unpopularity of science and engineering studies. If renewing the space race is unfeasible, why not race to protect and save the Earth instead? Despite the politicization of climate change, it is clear that our impact on the environment is increasingly negative, and it will take hard science and courageous thinking to balance progress and preservation. Even if our few visits to the moon prove to be our only spectacular achievements in space, let’s not leave them our only spectacular achievements in science.