The Moon Landing

Portage, WI – July 16^th, 1969, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a Saturn V Rocket took off from the launch pad “32 minutes past the hour.” Aboard were Buzz Aldrin, Michel Collins, and Neil Armstrong. The world was watching- in fact, up to that time it had the highest viewership of any television broadcast.

On July 20, 1969, 40 years ago today, the Lunar Module Eagle separated from the Command Module Columbia. Collins, alone aboard Columbia, inspected Eagle as it pirouetted before him to ensure the craft was not damaged. The Eagle’s sides were so fragile you could have put a pencil through them.

As the ship taxied down, Armstrong realized the computer was taking for a sea of rocks “Tranquility Sea.” He took manual control and piloted it himself to the ground. As they descended their fuel gauges began to run low-down to 25 seconds. Then the radio went through to Charlie Duke, the Capcom at Mission Control: “Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed.”

“Roger, Twan-- Tranquility, we copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot.”

They rested for two and a half hours. Then before beginning the EVA, Aldrin said "This is the LM pilot. I'd like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way.” Then he took communion.

The ladder came down. People all over the planet must have been shaking with excitement. “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” And the Space Race was over. Man had walked on the moon. The American flag was the first one planted there, not the Russian one. An astronaut was the first one to make a foot print, not a cosmonaut.

It would go on, but Russia had lost the race. They had tired themselves out with the Space and Arms Races at the same time. The Communist economy could not sustain it. They would soon begin to decline, and then they would fall with a crash. But Communism did not die, it still lives on, but that one step did mark the beginning of the end.

Because the moon has no atmosphere, that print will stay there for a long time, perhaps forever. And so will the Print of the Cold War. It is still with us. We no longer talk about it, but the missiles are still there, Russia and America are not on the best of terms. While the wall would be years in coming down, one small step ended the Cold War. But the print is still there.

Andrew C. Abbott

“Grand Slam”

Madison, WI – On 28 April, a U.S. Lockheed U-2C spy plane, Article 358, was ferried from Incirlik Air Base in Turkey to the US base at Peshawar airport by pilot Glen Dunaway. The fuel had arrived the day before. The crew arrived, Francis Gary Power, and the backup pilot, Bob Ericson. On the morning of 29 April, the crew in Badaber was informed that the mission had been delayed one day. Then it was delayed again because of the weather

It was fifteen days before the East-West Summit in Paris. The mission’s code word was Grand Slam. Its purpose  was to overfly the Soviet Union, photographing targets including the ICBM sites at the Baikonur Cosmodrome and Plesetsk Cosmodrome, then land at Bodø in Norway.  It was May 1^st.

However, Russia was on Red-Alert, they expected the fly over. Lieutenant General of the Air Force Yevgeniy Savitskiy ordered the air-unit commanders "to attack the violator by all alert flights located in the area of foreign plane's course, and to ram if necessary". A surface to air missile brought it down.

At first the Americans tried to cover up, the Russians called them out. The president at the time, president Eisenhower, had said at the beginning of his presidency that he would use the atomic bomb if necessary, and tension was high. At the Four Powers Summit, which ended the second day, Nikita Khrushchev rescinded his invitation to Eisenhower to visit Russia, and the summit ended. The American pilot was released less than two years later.

Such was the Cold War, an era of brinkmanship, an era of everyone being constantly ready for air raids. When the sirens went off, Time Square could be evacuated in two minutes. From The Cuban Missile Crises to the explosion of the H-Bomb Shrimp, it was one fear of annihilation of the planet after another.

However, the bombs were never used. Although the war was called a cold one, many died in the far reaches of the globe.  It was a massive mistake. A “century of man slaughter and mind slaughter.” It was a crime. Fear, greed, and misunderstanding, built massive surveillance states, and caused useless wars and weapons races. The Cold War was not quite over when Richard Nixon took the presidency, in fact, even in Ronald Regan’s time it would still go on, but not with the same vigor and fear. But there was still time, before the War began to slow down, for one more episode to take place.

Andrew C. Abbott

The Secret Speech: Cold War Part 5

“Stalin is excessively rude…I propose that the comrades consider the method by which Stalin would be removed from this position and by which another man would be selected for it…who above all , would differ from Stalin in…greater tolerance, greater loyalty, greater kindness, and more considerate attitude toward the comrades, a less capricious temper, etc.".- Vladimir Lenin

Madison, WI – It was given on February 25^th, 1956, in secret, to the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Called On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences, Nikita Khrushchev, the premier of Russia, excluded the press, the guests, and anyone else who might make it public. The reason was because he was denouncing the late Stalin.

He spoke of him as bloodthirsty, overly loved, and as a man who had done much harm to his nation. But Khrushchev himself had worked in Stalin’s regime without much meaningful protest. A note was passed to him, “Where were you at that time?” indicating his hypocrisy. Khrushchev responded by saying “the one who wrote that note, please stand.” No one did. “Very well, I was then where you are now.”

As soon as the session was over, the entire text of the story was out. The Russian people were confused and shocked. Many in the West who had been at least sympathetic to the party turned away, many resigned their memberships. Stalin had been the great personality who had held them all together, and now his memory was being torn apart. Young boys growing up began to rebel against the ideas of Communism throughout Russia.

The old regime of Russia was coming to an end. But it was still alive and well for the time being. However, the bloodbath was over. Instead of having a bullet put to the political prisoners’ heads, they were now ferried off to the work camps much more often. In fact, for a short time, there was even a bit of congeniality for the West. Sputnik began the Space Race, and talk was even begun about a joint American-Soviet Space Station.

However, high above the city of Moscow, where Khrushchev had given his speech, in the night, possibly even the night he had given the speech, a motor of a plane could have been heard. Those planes were about to change the Cold War again. At the same time, the cold Atlantic waters washed the beach of Cuba. A “Grand Slam” was coming.

Andrew C. Abbott

The First One To Go Up: Sputnik 1

New Lisbon, WI – It was 1957, the year Laura Ingalls Wilder would die. But something else would also happen.

October 4^th, at Site No. 1, deep in the Russian Wilderness, operators waited to hear something over the radio. At 20:58 hours they heard it. A series of beeps came over the transmitter, they were from space. Sputnik 1, the first man-made satellite set in motion, had orbited the planet once. The artificial satellite had been launched as Russia’s contribution to the International Geophysical Year. Korolyov called Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev to confirm success. Then the world knew.

The news caused panic throughout the planet. It was seen as evidence that the Soviets were far ahead of the West in their technology. The Americans vowed to put their own satellite into orbit, while the Russians launched their second satellite, Sputnik 2, it was the first to carry a living thing, a dog named Lika. As an aside, at least one woman bought a life insurance policy, sure that the satellite would fall on her head. Another man was worried that its frequencies would open his automatic garage doors.

The Russians had gained world prestige, and, for the moment at least, had regained their seat at the table. Eisenhower formed NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Explorer 1 was launched the next year by the Americans.

The Space Race continued. In 1961 Vostok 1 went up. On it, was cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. The Americans had once again lost at achieving a milestone in the race first, and were still far behind.

The same year President Kennedy ordered NASA geared up. Kennedy predicted that a man would walk on the moon by 1970. It was three weeks after Gagarin went up that American Alan Shepherd orbited the earth. Americans were called astronauts, the Greek word for Star Sailors.

In the race there would be the loss of several men in training. There would be experiments and inventions. Plans and counter plans. There were the Gemini missions, in which the men on board the ships wore air tanks and space suits while still in side, afraid of losing their oxygen.

The race continued with the Russians hoping to be the first ones to land a man on the moon. But meanwhile they were exhausting themselves. The arms race and the space race were too much for a communist central planning system short on resources. The premiers were beginning to notice. And they were going to change something, in fact, the changes began even before the Space Race did, and it started with a “Secret Speech.”

Andrew C. Abbott