What is this latest fuss about a landing on the moon? Don't get excited, nobody has walked on it again. For all the fun those astronauts had bouncing about up there in their moon-suits years ago, there has been nothing sufficiently interesting to lure human beings back since 1972. Remember the scene in the movie "Apollo 13" where Mr. Tom Hanks, playing Mission Commander Jim Lovell, squints at the moon from Earth and realizes that he can make it appear or disappear by simply covering it with his thumb? Following the departure of Apollo 17 nearly 27 years ago, the moon shrank to just such a tiny, remote orb in the public mind -- and in the international space community's priorities as well. Which makes the excitement that resurfaces with every big anniversary of the first moon landing -- 30 years ago today -- all the more incongruous.
Every five years, the familiar rituals of remembrance are repeated. Old tapes of the Apollo 11 mission are replayed, from launch to landing. Graying news anchors recall the thrill of covering it. Science writers remind us of its technical significance. First-men-on-the-moon Mr. Neil Armstrong and Mr. Buzz Aldrin and their copilot Mr. Michael Collins are profiled and dissected all over again and turn up with the predictable graciousness of royalty at NASA's commemorative events. For the umpteenth time, the media walk us solemnly through the history of the U.S. moon shot: the shock of Sputnik; President John F. Kennedy's clarion call to put a man on the moon by the end of the '60s; the tragedies; the ultimate triumph; the tragico-triumphant coda of the aborted Apollo 13 mission. We have heard the famous lines so many times -- "The Eagle has landed . . ."; "That's one small step for man . . ."; "Magnificent desolation" -- we could script the movie ourselves by now.
It is true that the plaque left on the moon by Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Aldrin reads ". . . We came in peace for all mankind," and that the United States has always been careful to couch the official rhetoric of celebration in universal rather than nationalist terms. Nevertheless, it is impossible for observers in other countries -- even those who recall the suspense and awe of July 20, 1969 as vividly as any American -- not to detect a double note of self-congratulation and self-reassurance in the U.S.' interminable revisiting of this historic event. The suspicion creeps in that it is protesting too much: Would the anniversary cause such a stir if anything as noteworthy had been achieved since?