Apollo 11 gala event, Part 2

has regained his Poise ladies and gentlemen waler kronite Jim you are a tough act to follow you're a tough act to compete against and you're a worst one to follow it um it is true that I was speechless 20 years ago and I guess there are more people tonight who wish that were so tonight than even recognize the fact 20 years ago keynote speeches shouldn't come at this hour of the night I think we're it should be a postcript probably to all the wonderful things have been said here tonight about the Apollo program about what it meant what it is was I speechless was I speechless I I thought that maybe I was having the opportunity tonight 20 years later that I've been looking for all those years and that's to finally tell a few people who weren't able to watch the broadcast the CBS broadcast that is the with apologies jump the uh I would be able to tell them what I said that night now I learned that in the seclusion of the uh the chamber the astronauts themselves watch the tape and uh so I can assume that maybe some of the rest of you who were rather busy at that moment watch the tapes as well but if for those of you who didn't you may want to take paper and pencil by the way but these were Immortal words when I did find my voice uh they should be freely placed on Mars when we get there I suppose because well they were momentous what I said was I quote this directly oh boy oh actually I had more uh I gathered my witch at that point and went right ahead my next word was who followed by again for emphasis clearly planned boy but I wasn't the only one I looked over Wally Sherra sitting next to me and he had tears rolling down his cheeks as I did uh down mine I almost got that same feeling tonight what a magnificent job you did Jim and all of you in putting that presentation together thrilling thrilling the dinner was too by the way whoever did that beautiful and the decorations the whole thing what a what 20 years ago it doesn't seem possible but what a reunion viewed by Prosper posterity what I said May lack the Resonance of course of that's one small step for man one giant leap for mankind but my reaction I think was made up in feeling for probably what it lacked in content uh I was overcome here I was a professional reporter supposedly a professional communicator and there I was speechless and the Really remarkable thing of course is that I'd had just as long to prepare for that moment as the whole Apollo program mad look what the Apollo program did and look what I was able to come up with but you know I I'm pretty positive that everybody everybody felt that same inexpressible high that had caught hold of me and not just Americans of course but the multitudes all around the globe in fact of all the millions of earthlings who knew men were finally standing on the moon the least based out probably were Neil Armstrong and buz Aldren but what Thrills they gave us and what Memories We Could recount them of course here tonight we have been doing some of that for hours and indeed we continue to do it forever more the memory of Buzz Aldren joking about not locking himself out as he climbed out of the hatch and into immortality of course both Neil and Buzz describing their initial Impressions that seemed to be so different at the moment and gave it human Dimension to kneel it with Stark Beauty to buzz magnificent desolation the deployment of the plaque saying as we noted here from here men from the planet Earth First set foot upon the moon July 1969 ad we came in peace For All Mankind the American flag and the phone call from President Nixon in which Neo said it's a great honor and privilege for us to be here here representing not only the United States but men of Peace of all nations with an interest and curiosity and a vision for the future 20 years later I think we're thankful still that from the beginning the apollo1 astronauts saw their mission not only as an achievement of the United States but most importantly as a milestone in the history of man you pass me some about as Winston Churchill used to say water except he lied those thoughts of course of Peace of man making this Venture for all men uh was those thoughts were picked up by others repeated by many of the space philosophers ERS of the time with us in our studio were two great men of vision Arthur Clark and Robert heinlin hline was dead certain that what we had just seen was only the start of manspace exploration of trips to all our sister planets even to other stars and Clark said and when they do go out just as when they came to this country they'll forget their original nationalities we're going to see them going out into space as Nations which will develop new ideas I suppose that underneath whatever veneer I have picked up in half a century or so as a news manam cicer I'm afraid many ways I'm still sort of a simple gwiz sort of a guy I I believe in progress I believe that man can solve his problems and better his condition on this planet if he puts his mind to it I have this faith in technology and science and engineering I feel that they can help us move mountains if we keep them under control I think our country ought to stand for something quite a lot of good things and when it does I'm proud of it proud of being an American and I guess that puts us puts me in our country's mainstream as a member of the mainstream the Epic flight of Apollo 2 was my kind of story and it couldn't have happened at a better time for America and for us Americans most of us will remember that 1969 wasn't the best of times the war in Vietnam was tearing us apart there there were peace talks of course stumbling along as I remember in Paris inconclusively the US contingent Vietnam was being reduced but the Bloodshed continue sometime around April the number of American Dead pass the total in the Korean War 33 3,000 and was to go quite a bit higher anti-war demonstrations routinely brought out tens of thousands of people some of them threw rocks at policemen and National Guardsmen and they naturally responded if the burning of one American flag upsets us today to the point of amending the Constitution we might remember that in 1969 flag burning was a standard operating procedure in some quarters of our country now Vietnam wasn't the only thing dividing the country after years of heroic efforts to win the ordinary rights of citizenship black leaders were giving way to new angrier voices who spoke of withdrawal instead of integration some armed themselves and even shot it out with the police and so many of our better students had little time or inclination to study anything expanding all their energies instead occupying Administration buildings and closing down campuses and even bombing Laboratories confronting all authority figures whether in the University or on the police force wherever challenging the very scholarship they supposedly were there to further demanding it be replaced by something more relevant whatever in the devil that was there are issues that divide us today of course there undoubtedly were issues that divided men when they first banded together with clubs and Spears to hunt game but there was a special ugly about the late 60s giving rise to even fear that Civilization itself at least American civilization was in Mortal danger we certainly were losing faith in ourselves and in this dismal setting what a breath of fresh air the Apollo project was it was grounded in optimism and predicated on teamwork in honored an old American tradition rolling back an unexplored Frontier and while those there were those who saw our moon mission as primarily one to beat the Russians or saw in it primarily a military objective to dominate space from a lunar platform the motive that most Americans took to their hearts was a much more Splendid one simply put to explore the unknown to expand the parameters of human knowledge my colleague Eric seari summed up both sides of the argument on the air that the night before Apollo 2 was launched I must say that until that time Eric to me it seemed gen generally contemptuous of the space program but the Grandeur of the occasion got to him down there at the cape I felt that he blossomed right there before my very eyes throughout our coverage he was as eloquent and thought-provoking as only Eric seide could be so with your permission I'm going to quote him with some words that are particularly pertinent today and are far more eloquent I must say than oh boy who Eric said the core of the argument is philosophical almost religious and concerns the nature of man and his Society there are men here passionately convinced that we cannot plan our opportunities but must take them at the tide when they come that without New Frontiers always beckoning an energetic people rusts and corrodes that space is not only The Cutting Edge for science today but a moral substitute for war that could give the quarreling human race some sense of common identity of Brotherhood and there are men convinced with equal passion that this adventure however Majestic its drama is only one more Act of Escape that it is man once again running away from himself and his real needs that we're approaching the bright side of the moon with the Dark Side of ourselves with chanism competitive aggression and that the chief uses of space will be military in the end we do know that history has never proceeded by a rational plan not even science knows what it is doing much beyond the immediate experiment we know that the human brain will soon know more about the composition of the Moon than knows about the human brain we will know why the Moon is what and where it is before we know why human beings do what they do we are still closer to our animal Origins than to any Millennium in peace it is possible that the Divine spark in man will consume him in Flames that the big brain will prove our ultimate flaw like the dinosaur's big body that the metal plaque Armstrong and Aldren expect to place on the moon will become man's epap but the future has never revealed itself it is made step by step Moment by moment the next great moment is now at hand beautiful words from Eric seai well the next great moment of which Eric spoke of course that day was the eagle departure and Landing then on the moon but how appropriate his remarks are now 20 years later as we Ponder the nature of our next great moment some people today seem to have the idea that the moon landing itself has been demeaned because we have not met in these ensuing 20 years all the optimistic hopes for our space future that were voiced in the Euphoria of Apollo 11 success well we've not met all those promises of course and who knows that better than all of us here we have flown a successful reusable shuttle and thus taken the first step toward an orbiting space station but we've not established a space Colony nor a base on the moon nor gone to distant planets in fact we have met almost none of the spoken Promises of two decades ago this is not the way we would have liked it but that's the way it has been disputed priorities within the Space Program unclear objectives presidential disinterest inadequate funding all of contrib uted to the American doldrums and space exploration discouragement is to be expected among those who have given so much to the program and are impatient for further Great Adventures within their lifetimes and it's a shame that through a sense of inactivity in the space program public enthusiasm has been permitted to Wayne but from the broad perspective of History these years since the Apollo missions have been but a flicker of an eyelid they do not Mark a sess of man's exploration of space but only a Hiatus and historically speaking a very brief Hiatus at that the pause in no possible way should be considered a reflection of any kind on Apollo or more specifically on all of us of our pioneering space exploration generation who dreamed and spoke so enthusiastically of the future on that day of Triumph 20 years ago the accomplish ments of all of you who planned the missions who built the spacecraft who made the difficult decisions in Mission Control who flew Beyond where man had ever been who flew the first great steps out there let's not forget that Borman loville Ander Stafford cernon young all went to the Moon too they helped show the way all the accomplishments of all of you did pave the way to the Future no matter when the next person takes that great step for mankind and by the way mentioning John Young if you can tell a personal reminiscence story I can dog on it not as charmingly of course as him but I but I got to I got to tell you one s i was mind I was telling Mr Co that uh John Young took me for a ride in the shuttle simulator out here at the Johnson Space Center and and uh we were we we landed thing and and the voice control came and said John we've got an indication of fire in here and John turned to me and said what in the world are they doing we're just you know taking a few simulator rides here I don't even have my books we've never practiced fire on the run out like this what just with that they came they came in again said John John we've got a indication of a fire in here and he said I know I know I'm working on the problem they said oh not in the simulator program here in the building get the hell out of [Applause] there well there's going to be more delay in our space program we're in a kind of a happy 24hour Euphoria right now after the events in Washington yesterday but we can't expect that we're going to immediately be able to build the machines and start out toward Mars of course nobody realistically believes that one thing that has happened since Apollo is a change in the financial fortunes of our country of course the next steps are going to have to compete for shrunken Resources with urgent social programs to house the homeless educate the underprivileged illiterate protect the environment reestablish the competitiveness of American industry but need I go on there are some who wish that some of the vast expenditures for the military utilization of space could be reappropriated for the peaceful exploration of space even as the vision was projected by the words of Neil and Buzz and on that plaque that they left on the moon and then perhaps we could share the vast expenses of further Exploration with the Soviet Union and other nations and we could get on with more expeditiously with the challenges ahead of all mankind out perhaps out there we could escape the artificial National rivalries that stifle us in our Earth environment but however it's done surely imaginative leadership in our space program will win out we are celebrating tonight the Supreme technological achievement of our 20th century A Century of great great interventions and of scientific progress why in the lifetime of most of us here we plunged into at least six engineering scientific technological eras any one of which could qualify as a whole age of man the nuclear age the computer age the prochemical age the Telecommunications age the DNA age and of course the space age and in our 20th century we also experienced two great world wars that saw the destruction of great cities and irreplaceable works of art and cost millions of lives and we watched Empires wither and others grow 400 years from now in the year 2,389 the children of our descendants living in space stations and on the moon and perhaps on other planets will be gathering in their school rooms or at their telec computers or whatnot and if few future Educational Systems overcome our present aversion to teaching history they'll be spending a little time learning about the 20th century we can't even be sure exactly what our those descendants of ours are going to look like we know how natural selection has increased the size of the human body in the last 400 years think what the influence of an artificial space environment plus man's manipulative capacity with DNA discoveries might do to future humans at any rate we should be fairly certain that they'll somehow absorb their history maybe even through thought transference or whatnot maybe that's the only way to teach children history but one thing we can be even more certain the one event to the 20th century the one event whose date those spacelings of the 24th century will be asked to memorize will be a Apollo 11even landing on the moon July 20 1969 that was the day way back then their teachers will tell them when a primitive spacecraft with dangerously explosive fuel in great tanks that left the Earth in a frightening although controlled explosion finally after an incredibly long Voyage of more than two days landed on the moon and two men in great cumbersome costumes got out while the whole world held its Collective breath it was so dangerous a mission it was thought and children they'll be told that began the age of space expiration that led to the creation of our home here on Colony 12 or wherever and they'll learn that incredible as it will seem then in 2,389 people on Earth actually argued about whether it was worth spending the money to send those early explorers into space doesn't it all sound kind of familiar Queen Isabella's precarious funding of Columbus little grumbling in the Royal Court after all despite the great political movements and even the birth of the Renaissance what is the one date we all remember from the 15th century of course October 12th 1492 most of our Century's great events will be but asteris in future history books compared to man escaping Earth and landing on a distant orb and you were there even those of us who participated even those of us who participated only as reporters can take great satisfaction in having been present at the beginning of a great new age of man so Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldren and Michael Collins the thousands of others who made possible and supported you in your great adventure may I close with words familiar to most of you Shakespeare's Henry V F as he rallied his outmanned forces to battle the French at aenor gentlemen in England now Abed shall think themselves the cursed they were not here and hold their manhood cheap whil as any speaks that fought with us upon St christen's day thank you and God bless we're very near the end of this evening one more speaker I want to thank the uh organizers of this celebration for inviting me to be here as a part of this evening and I want to add my congratulations to Neil and Buzz and Mike for their outstanding achievements on Apollo 11 and to all the men and women who made it possible I count the years that I covered the Apollo program among the happiest and most rewarding of my life and I thank everyone involved for that great adventure and for this wonderful evening three weeks ago today Richard trule retired as a rear Admiral in the United States Navy his retirement lasted exactly 24 hours the next day he became the eth administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration the first astronaut to hold that job in the three and a half years prior to this month Dick had successfully led the effort to get the shuttle back flying again and this year he was awarded both the colliar and the GED trophies dick was the pilot on the sts2 the Colombia first man spacecraft ever ref flown in space he was the commander of the sts-8 the Challenger in the first night launch and night landing in the shuttle program and prior to joining NASA dick was a Navy fighter pilot with more than 7,500 hours of jet time did you ever stop think about that if you fly a jet 500 mph on an average it means a dick truly has flown 3, 757,50 miles from here over in fet Mississippi which is just a little bit south of Panther swamp it means that he sure came a long way to get here tonight Dick's got the distinguished service medal two Legions of Merit the Navy distinguished flying cross n little award Harmon trophy among other achievements but his friends here in Houston tell me that his most he's proudest of the fact that he is president for life of the ace Moving Company ladies and gentlemen Admiral Richard [Applause] truly America's space program is about leadership and leadership in my opinion is about presidents like President Kennedy standing on the the steps of rice Stadium behind me and yesterday uh President Bush on the steps of the National Air uh the air and space museum in Washington DC it's late tonight it's been a long evening and a wonderful one and inan good night tonight I I uh I can't uh top the words of my boss the White House July 20th yesterday 1989 Barbara and I are delighted to send our warmest greetings to everyone gathered in Houston to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the first Apollo lunar Lanning with the success of Apollo 11 Neil Armstrong Michael Collins and Buzz Al fulfill the dreams of Americans and of people throughout the world and throughout the ages the exploration of the Moon it is fitting therefore that we recall our pride in that remarkable and historic achievement and honor the thousands of men and women of NASA and the Aerospace Community who made it possible however the anniversary of the moon landing is not merely a Time to commemorate the past it is an opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to the future of America's Space Program whether pursuing the development of space station Freedom returning to the moon or reaching out to Mars the exploration of space our last great Frontier poses technical challenges for the United States and offers immense rewards for mankind I know that NASA and America are up to the challenge as we work to ensure that our nation Space Program remains Second To None Barbara joins me in sending our best wishes for an enjoyable anniversary celebration may God bless you George Bush thank you it was my understanding that dick was going to close the evening off that's it for tonight enjoy yourself thank you for coming dancing for those of you who still have the stamina thank you and good [Applause] night