This story was updated at 8:09 p.m. EDT.
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.
"These two men are
laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal: the search for truth and
understanding. They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be
mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they
will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the
unknown.
"In their exploration,
they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they
bind more tightly the brotherhood of man. In ancient days, men looked at stars
and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the
same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.
"Others will follow,
and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied. But these men
were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.
"For every human being
who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some
corner of another world that is forever mankind."
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.
Forty
years after astronauts first set foot on the moon, SPACE.com examines what
wešve done since and whether America has the right stuff to get back to the
moon by 2020 and reach beyond. For exclusive interviews and analysis, visit
SPACE.com daily through July 20, the anniversary of the historic landing. Editor's note: This story was corrected to reflect that astronaut Frank Borman commanded the Apollo 8 mission in 1968.
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