Good morning, it's Friday Dec. 6, 2024, the day of the week in which I reprise a quote intended to be educational or uplifting. Today' inspirational words came from William A. Anders, a NASA astronaut whose place in American history – the history of the cosmos, really – was cemented by a photograph he took from the moon.
Fifty-six years ago today, Time magazine came out with an arresting cover depicting two men in space suits striding toward the lunar surface, as if engaged in a strenuous sprint. One was an American astronaut, the other a Soviet "cosmonaut." Only four words accompanied the artistic rendering, a headline succinctly summing up the cover story inside: "Race for the Moon." By Dec. 6, 1968, most Americans expected the United States to win the race to the moon, a challenge laid down by John F. Kennedy at the beginning of the decade. Eight weeks earlier, Apollo 7 had demonstrated NASA's rendezvous capabilities in space, much of it televised. Those old enough to remember might recall the thrill of Commander Wally Schirra reporting 10 minutes into the flight, "She's riding like a dream."
On this date that year, NASA was deep into planning the next mission, Apollo 8, the first that would orbit the moon. The commander this time was Frank Borman, a graduate of West Point who'd been a fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force, earned a master's degree in aeronautical engineering at Cal Tech, and had become an accomplished test pilot. Also on his crew were Jim Lovell, a former U.S. Navy aviator, and USAF Major Bill Anders, a third jet fighter pilot.
Although these guys knew what they were doing in the sky, no one was sure how the propellant system underneath them would do. The Apollo 8 crew was the first that had been launched atop NASA's powerful Saturn V rocket.
Apollo 8 reminds us that the advancement of civilization into unknown frontiers is almost always a step-by-step process, and rarely proceeds in a linear and logical fashion. The "space race" may have pitted Americans against Russians, but it was an Englishman name George Cayley, born in December 1773, who dared to imagine space flight. The "father of aerodynamics," Cayley laid out the principles of fixed-wing flight in 1799. Fifty years before the Wright brothers made history at Kitty Hawk, he built a full-sized glider that flew 900 feet before crashing. He openly discussed manned flight, and correctly predicted the innovation that would make it viable: the construction of lightweight engines.
In other words, when John Adams was president, an innovator who was neither American nor Russian began laying the groundwork for space exploration. And 169 years later, the first humans saw the dark side of the moon. In so doing, the crew of Apollo 8 convinced NASA engineers that President Kennedy's famous goal was within reach. They also took a photograph, called "Earthrise," which helped launch an enterprise of an entirely different nature back on their home planet.
Bill Anders died last June at age 90, doing what he loved – flying an airplane. But he left us that awe-inspiring photograph and some profound words to go with it.
"The view points out the beauty of the Earth – and its fragility," Anders said in a 2015 interview with Forbes magazine.
"It helped kickstart the environmental movement," he added. "Here we came all the way to the moon to discover Earth."
That is our quote of the week.
Carl M. Cannon is the Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics. Reach him on X @CarlCannon.
