Things To Think About When Going To The Moon

In current times with the extraordinary advancements in the technological sector and the variety of innovative gadgets – each, tumbling out onto the market quicker than the last – we can forget just how little time we have had with these tools at our fingertips.

One example of the advancements above is space travel. With Jeffery Bezos and his company Blue Origin announcing that the billionaire would blast into space on 20th July 2021, Richard Branson denying that there was any kind of “space race” as he zoomed up before Bezos with Virgin Galactic on July 11th, and the many people, rightly, having difficult discussions about all of this being just another reflection of the widening of the wealth gap in the Western world… The idea of space travel as a thing seems to be fast shifting in the public psyche. There are so many people who can’t afford to eat, never mind have the disposable income to spend on what is essentially a rollercoaster ride to space and back. As Oxfam America points out in a statement about Bezos:

Jeff Bezos' 11-minute thrill ride to space is an insult to the millions of people here on planet Earth who struggle every day to feed their families and make ends meet. Many of them are the very Amazon workers who helped make Bezos the richest man in the world.

All of the recent discourse surrounding space travel has oddly made it seem more normalised, but again, we can forget just how utterly insane having the technology to get yourself to space is!

The Universe is a vast, cold (and sometimes volatile) place. It is also a place of wonder, mind-bending possibilities that couldn’t physically occur on Earth, scientific breakthroughs, and the potential to connect with something much bigger than ourselves. The constant stream of new information about the way the Universe, and consequently, the way Earth works, is just as fascinating as the knowledge that there is so much we still don’t know. The one thing that we all know is how perilous embarking on a space journey is.

When American astronaut, Neil Armstrong and Apollo 11 landed on the moon on July 20th (we see what you did there Bezos) in 1969, there was a strong chance that the crew would not make it back to Earth alive. Apollo 11 were aware of the dangers – an operation that involved landing safely, exploring alien land, and getting back home under such harsh conditions being a feat never accomplished before in human history!

As space historian Robert Pearlman acknowledged of the astronauts’ situations:

You're about to embark on a mission that's more dangerous than anything any human has ever done before. And you have a family that you're leaving behind on Earth, and there's a real chance you will not be returning.

There is the potential for spacecraft to explode, miss their target orbit, suffer technological glitches… Or knowing that designers, operations crew, and engineers could miscalculate the enormous amount of raw energy that is released when spacecraft first launch, there is a lot that could go wrong. With comments such as “either it all works and everybody lives, or it doesn't and everybody dies…” (British astronaut, Tim Peake) you would be forgiven for starting to think about ways to ensure the people you leave behind would be able to have a good life if you didn’t come back.

Getting their affairs in order was at the forefront of Apollo 11’s minds. Only, they were about to run into a problem… A lunar landing and all of the dangers that came with it had been theorised, but never actually seen before. And the theory suggested that the mission was a very hazardous one indeed. This fact worked to make any life insurance policies the crew wanted to take out, either nigh impossible, or obscenely expensive!

But the astronauts did have something going for them… being the first crew at the time to potentially walk on the moon, they were, unsurprisingly, quite famous. They were aware that with all the hype around the lunar mission, there was already a demand by a great number of awestruck supporters for autographs from them. There was a particular buzz around signed envelopes which had been timestamped (postmarked) on important dates.

And so, the crew of Apollo 11, realising that there was a market for these autographs in which the price they would sell for could significantly rise if the men died, came up with an innovative plan. Around a month before launch time, whenever the astronauts would find a free moment during their quarantine period, they would sign hundreds of envelopes.

As radio producer Chana Joffe-Walt tells:

They gave them to a friend. And on important days — the day of the launch, the day the astronauts landed on the moon — their friend got them to the post office and got them postmarked, and then distributed them to the astronauts' families.

It was life insurance in the form of autographs.

The idea was that, if they didn’t make it home, their families would not only be able to continue to put food on the table but would also be afforded the funds needed to put their children through higher education or survive comfortably through some of life’s many unexpected twists and turns, as a few examples. It was a selfless act, both on the part of the Apollo 11, and the designated friend who could very well have kept those autographs for themself.

As luck would have it, the crew returned safely, and the autographs turned out not to be needed. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and the (already famous) Apollo 11 would, in today’s terms, go viral… with all of the intense outpourings of love, hate, and conspiracy theories that come with it. The key thing is that Apollo 11 captured a sense of wonder and ignited the world’s imaginations, paving the way for much bigger things. Those autographs, along with the thousands more that they signed for free upon their return, can each set you back as much as $30,000 at space memorabilia auctions today. The memories of Apollo 11’s safe return, of the moment they were reunited with their families and friends, we’re sure, would last a lifetime.