Sitting here on a rather dull and miserable Sunday afternoon, I'm confronted with almost no choice on the television. I've been driven, by the absence of anything else, to watch the film of 'Apollo 13' and, as always, this is no bad thing.
My mind goes back to the real events of April 1970 when I remember all too well that the world held its breath for days on end as the crew of the ship and the staff of NASA tried to bring the stricken craft home safely. I have no idea how close to the real events the film is, but it's gripping and appears to be as realistic as it can be, given the needs for decency and entertainment. For me, this is a great film that truly captures the dramatic days of 40 years ago, a time when men still journeyed to the Moon using technology that is now so antiquated it makes the whole idea of such ventures seem ridiculous.
What happened over those few days in April 1970 was a true miracle, not one of those supposed miracles that support the creation of saints, but a true marvel of human ingenuity and spirit. Given an impossible and almost certainly fatal situation, NASA somehow contrived to turn disaster into triumph, successfully bringing its astronauts home. The ways in which they improvised and invented new procedures consitute a true high-point in human achievement; the simple fact that the crew maintained sufficient discipline to carry on in the face of almost certain death is an incredible tribute to them. The fact that all of this happened more than 40 years ago is almost impossible to believe.
What is now so sad is that the triumph and tragedy of the original US Space Programme has produced so little in the way of tangible, and public, results. No doubt, much knowledge was gained but there has to be little doubt that the purpose of the programme was really about politics rather than science; once the Russians were no longer perceived as a serious military threat, and the costs and difficulties of further exploration escalated, we seem to have drawn back from what is, admittedly, a highly expensive and speculative, not to say dangerous, field.
Men have not walked on the Moon since 1972 and we have yet to get any further into our Solar System, let alone the Galaxy, other than with unmanned probes; even these have barely entered interstellar space. It seems that we have reached an impasse at which further adventures are seen as being prohibitively expensive and no one can see the benefit, be it financial or scientific. Those unbelievably brave men who set off on the journey to the Moon in 1961, and finally arrived there in 1969, may justifiably feel let down by those who have held the purse strings in recent years.
As I watch the final scenes of the film, the craft is about to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere with everyone on tenterhooks; will it make it through ? Again, I remember the tension of the time; seconds and minutes went by, and there was no contact from the ship; a maximum blackout of 3 minutes was expected and the agony of the families of the crew can only be imagined. When the blackout reached 3 minutes without communication everyone feared the worst, at 4 minutes, it seemed certain that they had perished and yet, miraculously, they still came through. The jubilation at the end of the film was no more, and probably less than, the jubilation of millions way back in 1970.
I cry at the end of this film, every time I watch it, and I'm not even American. Apollo 13 was an astonishing triumph of human science and yet we seem to have lost our way ever since. Costs are, obviously, an issue but the rewards of a successful venture to even more distant places are incalculable. Eventually, we will make the move and journey back to the Moon and beyond; at some point we'll probably find a way of travelling at sufficient speed to allow for journeys to places outside of our solar system, and who knows where beyond that. The crew of Apollo 13, and the many other brave people who've ventured into space, were the trail-blazers, and we have to make sure that their valour, and sometimes their sacrifice, has not been in vain.
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