American Astronaut, Neil Armstrong, stepped on to
the moon for the first time in July 1969. The moment
he set his foot on the moon, the control mission in
American received these words uttered by him:
“That’s one small step for a man, one giant
leap for mankind.”
Armstrong and his two colleagues were selected
from amongst the top 30 astronauts of the U.S.A. He
possessed to a very high degree all those qualities
which were necessary for this difficult, historic
mission—extraordinary skill in flying, intelligence,
strength, ability to absorb information, mental and
emotional balance and the courage to accept
challenges unhesitatingly. Once selected, he had to
undergo rigorous training, for instance, having to
remain in deep water for long periods so that he
would become used to weightlessness. So that he
could deal with every possible emergency, he did
elaborate courses in astronomy, space flight, rocket
flight, the physics of the moon, etc.— all with the
help of computerized space data.
The 3100-ton Apollo 11 seemed a giant. It was as
high as a 36-storey building, having 8 million parts
and 91 engines installed in it. On the top was the
comparatively small machine, the Columbia, in
which the astronauts were seated to set off on their
historic journey.
The space machine was duly blasted off, circling the
earth for two and a half hours. Then its speed
increased to 403 miles per minute and on reaching
an altitude of 3000 miles the Columbia separated
from the rest of the machines. It was so equipped
that the seating space for the astronauts was only as
much as in an ordinary taxi. Finally they alighted
on the moon from where they gathered 46 pounds
of moon-earth, leaving equipment worth 5 Lakh
pounds behind them. They also left their footprints
on its surface, which hopefully will remain intact
for half a million years.
It was only after such highly elaborate preparations
that the “small step” could be taken which was
going to result in such a “giant leap” for mankind”.
--Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
( Ref - The Moral Vision)
