APOLLO NINE REFLECTIONS

how an angular go all the way everything looks good one mile downrange now four and a half miles high velocity 2500 feet per second [Music] nine thousand three hundred feet per second velocity [Music] and everybody's happy the clam here looking good well I have to go for staging velocity [Music] 96 miles [Music] i knitted twenty miles downrange now 101 miles high 23,000 feet per second velocity [Music] what I'd like to do is share with all of you my experience because that experience means very little if it's only for one person when you're up there after you get settled in and used to the feeling of weightlessness you notice that you're going around the entire earth every hour and a half and so you pull out a map of the world to see what you're passing over you set up the periscope and you look in and what you find yourself looking at is the Mediterranean area Greece and Italy in the Sinai and you begin to realize that in one glance what you're looking at is what once was the whole history of man the cradle of civilization and you think about all that history [Music] next you go down across the northern part of Africa you see Theo Pia and the little tip that's Yemen then you see that great subcontinent of India pointed down towards you as you go past it then you go out over the Philippines and up across that monstrous Pacific Ocean vast body of water never realized how big that is and finally you come up over the coast of California and you see Los Angeles and then Phoenix and then there's Houston there's home and that makes you feel good because all that is friendly and then looking down to the south there's a whole peninsula Florida before you [Music] then right away you're crossing the Atlantic Ocean again back towards Africa and you do this again it began and began round and round and you find that you're identifying with Houston and then identifying with Los Angeles and Phoenix and next you realize that you're also identifying with North Africa and then with India and then Sumatra and then Australia when you go around it in an hour and a half you begin to realize that your identity is with the whole thing and that is a change that is a new feeling you never really felt before [Music] after four days of this when you've done more tests than you can count you and your partner Dave Scott get set to leave the land that's been your home and go outside so you put on your suit you get all ready and then you go out the door the first thing you see is the Sun rising over the Pacific and it's an incredible sight but you can't look at it for too long because you really don't have time you've only got 40 minutes outside to do everything you have to do so you start taking lots of photographs like you're supposed to you take pictures of Dave and across the way in the command module Dave takes pictures of you and then a stroke of real good luck all of a sudden Dave's camera jams and so now he has to stop and fix that camera and you have just a few moments with nothing to do so you let go and you flowed out and then you look down there are no limits to it there are no frames there are no boundaries you're really out there floating going 17,000 miles an hour and there's not a sound there's a silence the depth of which you've never experienced before in that silence contrast so markedly with the speed you know you're going as you stare down at that magnificently beautiful earth below you you start thinking about what you're seeing the incredible spectacle of it and you start remembering brows your family and your identity keeps expanding your friends donation your earth [Music] and then something hits you in an instant you realize that on that globe that blue and white thing is everything you know everything that means anything to you all of history all of music all of art birth death love tears joy everything Oh [Music] and you think about what you're experiencing and why do you deserve this this fantastic experience have you been separated out to be touched by God to have this most special experience here now that other men have not had you think about that and you know absolutely but the answer is no there's nothing that you've done to deserve this it's not a special thing for you and then all of a sudden you realize that you are a piece of a total life you know very well and it comes through to you so powerfully that you are up there as a sensing element for man [Music] you look down and you see the surface of that globe that you've lived on all your life and you know that all those people down there everyone they're all like you they are you somehow you are representing them you are a sensing element now extending past the surface a point out on the end and that's a a very humbling feeling and then it really comes to you the giant step that humanity has taken somehow without any of us being aware of it things have changed and we can no longer see ourselves as we saw ourselves before [Music] for now we have seen our earth as it truly is bright and blue and beautiful floating in eternal silence with all of us as riders on the earth together brothers who know now that they are truly brothers [Music] [Music] and then almost too soon your experience is over you get set light the main engine turn around and head for home you slow the ship down just enough to graze that warm of the earth the atmosphere [Music] [Music] [Music] after ten days you've gone a hundred and sixty-one times around the world seen a hundred and sixty-one sunrises and sunsets and finally splash you're on the surface of the Atlantic and right away there are lots of people all around you all of a sudden your whole experience is behind you and you're you're back in humanity again but there's a difference in you now there's a difference in the relationship between you and your planet between you and everyone else on your planet because you've seen something that has forever changed you and it's an incredible feeling and what is it all meant have you opened a door to the future yes you have because you've played a part in a changing concept of man a relationship that you've assumed all these years not just you but everybody the whole of history has assumed a relationship to our planet which has now changed forever and you know that change has taken place because it's a part of your gut and through all this I've used the word you because it's not me it's you it's we its life let's add this experience and I guess that's really about all I'd like to say except that I'd like to sort of close with a poem by hee Cummings that's meant a lot to me it's become a part of me and it goes like this I thank thee God for most this amazing day with a leaping greenly spirits of trees and the blue true dream of sky for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes thank you [Music]