It’s easy, amid the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, to see it as an inevitable success. NASA had been preparing for the task for years, ever since President John F. Kennedy made his famous speech at Rice University in 1962, declaring America would “go to the moon in this decade.” When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin touched down on the lunar surface on July 20, 1969, we met the challenge with time to spare. It was a moment of national pride, a historical triumph.
But, we should also remember, it could just as easily not have been. And, in the event of a fatal mishap, President Richard Nixon had his own speech about Apollo 11’s unhappy ending ready to go.
