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-Short Attention Span Theater- |
The Saddest Speech Never Given |
2009-07-20 |
The triumphant success of NASA's Apollo 11 moon landing 40 years ago is a familiar story to most Americans, but it may be a surprise to some that then-President Richard Nixon was ready for disaster. Tucked away in the National Archives the speech written for Nixon for the historic lunar landing on July 20, 1969, but one he never hoped to read. It was a contingency speech, one Nixon would only read if tragedy struck the Apollo 11 mission and stranded commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin on lunar surface forever while their crewmate Michael Collins circled the moon in the command module. The speech surfaced about 10 years ago, around the 30th anniversary of the first moon landing. In his 2001 book "Almost History," which chronicles backup plans, speeches and documents that were never needed, author Roger Bruns details the origins of the Apollo 11 failure speech. They can be traced to astronaut Frank Borman, who commanded the 1968 Apollo 8 mission around the moon, who recommended to Nixon speechwriter William Safire that it would be prudent to have a plan in case the Apollo 11 astronauts suffered a very public demise, Bruns explained. According to the plan, Bruns added, Nixon would have called the wives of the Apollo 11 astronauts to express his condolences and then give the following speech: "Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace. These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice. According to Bruns, the stricken Apollo 11 astronauts would then shut down communications with Mission Control and there would be a brief ceremony by a clergyman commending their souls to the "deepest of the deep." Safire entitled his memo containing the backup speech "In the Event of a Moon Disaster." Of course, there was no moon disaster and the Apollo 11 astronauts and Nixon spoke with them by a phone-to-moon link while Armstrong and Aldrin were on the lunar surface. They lifted off on July 21, 1969 as planned and returned to Earth a few days later. Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins splashed down in the ocean, were quarantined for a short period to make sure they didn't pick up any cosmic maladies, then received the star treatment with ticker tape parades and a world tour. But the fact that Nixon was prepared for such a tragedy is a reminder of the unknown risks that faced the first moon explorers, especially as NASA celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing and prepares to return astronauts to the lunar surface by 2020 in new Orion capsules and Altair landers. |
Posted by:Anonymoose |
#1 It was a good speech - sure nice he didn't have to give it. Kind of ironic that the tragedy we were prepared for didn't happen and the tragedies that happened we weren't prepared for. |
Posted by: Glenmore 2009-07-20 21:57 |