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The hero as team player: Neil Armstrong and modern mythology
Neil Armstrong: Cold War by-product (2nd comment)
Robert Zaller
No one, it seems, ever had a bad word for Neil Armstrong. He wore his fame lightly, and made almost no effort to trade off it. There may have been shrewdness in this, because the first man on the Moon had a certain dignity, a certain historical image to protect; he couldn't sign autographs like Pete Rose.
But there was also courtesy. Armstrong fit the mold of the modest American hero set by Charles Lindbergh, but unlike Lindbergh he knew better than to mix in political controversy. That is to say, he knew both the requirements of his role and his own personal limitations. He prepared his one piece of eloquence ("One small step for a man . . ."), and then chose public silence.
Armstrong was upset about the cancellation of the manned space program and the cutbacks to NASA's budget. But he also understood that heroes don't lobby. If Lindbergh was a solitary Romantic hero, Armstrong was something new, something characteristic of the postwar world: the hero as team player.
It's no accident that Eisenhower, the quartermaster general who preferred consensus to conquest, became the first political hero of the postwar world, while Douglas MacArthur, who thought himself bigger than any war he fought, was retired in disgrace. In an R & D world, presumptuous egos were not welcome. MacArthur was the last Napoleonic general.
Man from Central Casting
Armstrong's personality, then, was honed in a culture that prized corporate discipline and self-effacement over unruly initiative. You don't get to walk on the Moon without fierce ambition, but you must know how to temper it, and you must possess great competence without making undue display of it.
Armstrong, with his broad, open American face, his ready smile and sanguine temperament, was the astronaut from Central Casting. Win or lose, he would not embarrass Houston. Or the rest of us.
That said, the moment of Armstrong's passing calls for reflection on what he accomplished. In one respect he represents a staggering human achievement. In less than 66 years, humanity went from the Wright brothers' first rickety flight to a journey of 240,000 miles beyond its home planet.
Some day, the technological innovation and expertise involved in Armstrong's Moon flight of 1969 may seem primitive. But by however many magnitudes it may be eclipsed, there will never be a leap comparable to that from Kitty Hawk to Apollo.
At the same time, however, the Moon flight seems ever more problematic. Eisenhower, leaving the presidency, had warned about the military-industrial complex, but the Moon mission would be its crowning achievement.
JFK's priorities
It's impossible to consider the history of the Moon landing without placing it in the context of the Cold War arms race, and the childish, incredibly wasteful competition of the superpowers. A great many things might have claimed John F. Kennedy's attention when he took his oath as Eisenhower's successor in January 1961: the movement for Civil Rights; the persistence of extreme poverty in the world's richest country; the specter of nuclear annihilation that culminated in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Kennedy decided that America's first priority was to send a man to the Moon.
Not all glory produces a practical result: witness the Egyptian pyramids. Something about the Moon launch seemed quintessentially American, in the best and worst sense. Americans had been the first to fly; an American had been the first to cross an ocean solo.
True, the Germans had made the first rockets, but their talent had been scooped up for Uncle Sam's arsenal. Somebody was going to get to the Moon; the Russians had pioneered space flight, and it was only a question of time before they landed their own man there.
The way to avert this ultimate humiliation was to announce a crash program that harnessed the best brains in the country, backed by unlimited resources. The Russians would be unable to compete, and the prize would be ours.
Romney's turn
Kennedy no doubt hoped to be still in office when the Moon was reached, but Dallas changed that. Had he served two terms, he might have had his wish; Apollo landed only six months after he would have left office. Lyndon Johnson finished the job, no doubt gritting his teeth at having to secure Kennedy's legacy.
Although Democrats saw the Moon mission through from the beginning to very near the end, however, it has always seemed a Republican preserve; and Mitt Romney's acceptance speech this week in Tampa, with its emphatic effort to appropriate Armstrong's memory, was only the latest chapter in the Top Gun mythologization of the space program.
Some people may remember George W. Bush's call to put a man on Mars. The Rover is doing the job far more cheaply and effectively, as of course a robotic vehicle could have done on the Moon. But where would Armstrong's toothy grin have been?
LBJ's reaction
The race to the Moon may have produced unintended by-products on Earth, however. Johnson's determination to move out of Kennedy's shadow— a shadow lengthened by the space program that was so identified with the martyred president— pushed him to embrace Civil Rights and the Voting Rights Act with a zeal he might not otherwise have shown. It also led him to create Medicare and to launch the War on Poverty, which within a decade had cut the poverty rate in America nearly in half. Jealousy, bitterness and wounded pride are not the worst spurs to achievement.
I watched the Moon landing through the jaundiced eyes of a Vietnam protester. It seemed to me largely a stunt that epitomized America's worst imperial decade. The idea of planting the national flag on the lunar surface felt like a childish prank that defaced the most beautiful object in our sky.
Today the Vietnam War that traumatized my generation is so long gone that my undergraduate students have hardly heard of it. Stunt or not, the Moon landing required skill and courage, and no little luck. When future ages look back on the 20th Century— if they do— this may be the event they remember, and Armstrong may become a name like Columbus.
History has funny tastes. We went to the Moon for all the wrong reasons, piggybacking on technology originally designed for killing members of our own species more efficiently. But we went.
To read another view of Armstrong by Tom Purdom, click here.
But there was also courtesy. Armstrong fit the mold of the modest American hero set by Charles Lindbergh, but unlike Lindbergh he knew better than to mix in political controversy. That is to say, he knew both the requirements of his role and his own personal limitations. He prepared his one piece of eloquence ("One small step for a man . . ."), and then chose public silence.
Armstrong was upset about the cancellation of the manned space program and the cutbacks to NASA's budget. But he also understood that heroes don't lobby. If Lindbergh was a solitary Romantic hero, Armstrong was something new, something characteristic of the postwar world: the hero as team player.
It's no accident that Eisenhower, the quartermaster general who preferred consensus to conquest, became the first political hero of the postwar world, while Douglas MacArthur, who thought himself bigger than any war he fought, was retired in disgrace. In an R & D world, presumptuous egos were not welcome. MacArthur was the last Napoleonic general.
Man from Central Casting
Armstrong's personality, then, was honed in a culture that prized corporate discipline and self-effacement over unruly initiative. You don't get to walk on the Moon without fierce ambition, but you must know how to temper it, and you must possess great competence without making undue display of it.
Armstrong, with his broad, open American face, his ready smile and sanguine temperament, was the astronaut from Central Casting. Win or lose, he would not embarrass Houston. Or the rest of us.
That said, the moment of Armstrong's passing calls for reflection on what he accomplished. In one respect he represents a staggering human achievement. In less than 66 years, humanity went from the Wright brothers' first rickety flight to a journey of 240,000 miles beyond its home planet.
Some day, the technological innovation and expertise involved in Armstrong's Moon flight of 1969 may seem primitive. But by however many magnitudes it may be eclipsed, there will never be a leap comparable to that from Kitty Hawk to Apollo.
At the same time, however, the Moon flight seems ever more problematic. Eisenhower, leaving the presidency, had warned about the military-industrial complex, but the Moon mission would be its crowning achievement.
JFK's priorities
It's impossible to consider the history of the Moon landing without placing it in the context of the Cold War arms race, and the childish, incredibly wasteful competition of the superpowers. A great many things might have claimed John F. Kennedy's attention when he took his oath as Eisenhower's successor in January 1961: the movement for Civil Rights; the persistence of extreme poverty in the world's richest country; the specter of nuclear annihilation that culminated in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Kennedy decided that America's first priority was to send a man to the Moon.
Not all glory produces a practical result: witness the Egyptian pyramids. Something about the Moon launch seemed quintessentially American, in the best and worst sense. Americans had been the first to fly; an American had been the first to cross an ocean solo.
True, the Germans had made the first rockets, but their talent had been scooped up for Uncle Sam's arsenal. Somebody was going to get to the Moon; the Russians had pioneered space flight, and it was only a question of time before they landed their own man there.
The way to avert this ultimate humiliation was to announce a crash program that harnessed the best brains in the country, backed by unlimited resources. The Russians would be unable to compete, and the prize would be ours.
Romney's turn
Kennedy no doubt hoped to be still in office when the Moon was reached, but Dallas changed that. Had he served two terms, he might have had his wish; Apollo landed only six months after he would have left office. Lyndon Johnson finished the job, no doubt gritting his teeth at having to secure Kennedy's legacy.
Although Democrats saw the Moon mission through from the beginning to very near the end, however, it has always seemed a Republican preserve; and Mitt Romney's acceptance speech this week in Tampa, with its emphatic effort to appropriate Armstrong's memory, was only the latest chapter in the Top Gun mythologization of the space program.
Some people may remember George W. Bush's call to put a man on Mars. The Rover is doing the job far more cheaply and effectively, as of course a robotic vehicle could have done on the Moon. But where would Armstrong's toothy grin have been?
LBJ's reaction
The race to the Moon may have produced unintended by-products on Earth, however. Johnson's determination to move out of Kennedy's shadow— a shadow lengthened by the space program that was so identified with the martyred president— pushed him to embrace Civil Rights and the Voting Rights Act with a zeal he might not otherwise have shown. It also led him to create Medicare and to launch the War on Poverty, which within a decade had cut the poverty rate in America nearly in half. Jealousy, bitterness and wounded pride are not the worst spurs to achievement.
I watched the Moon landing through the jaundiced eyes of a Vietnam protester. It seemed to me largely a stunt that epitomized America's worst imperial decade. The idea of planting the national flag on the lunar surface felt like a childish prank that defaced the most beautiful object in our sky.
Today the Vietnam War that traumatized my generation is so long gone that my undergraduate students have hardly heard of it. Stunt or not, the Moon landing required skill and courage, and no little luck. When future ages look back on the 20th Century— if they do— this may be the event they remember, and Armstrong may become a name like Columbus.
History has funny tastes. We went to the Moon for all the wrong reasons, piggybacking on technology originally designed for killing members of our own species more efficiently. But we went.
To read another view of Armstrong by Tom Purdom, click here.
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