Murnane's 1969 column: First cancer, hunger, then Mars
Editor's Note: Here is the column former Daily Herald political editor Ed Murnane wrote for the Daily Herald on July 22, 1969.
By Ed Murnane
Michael, at an age of slightly less than three years, you don't realize exactly what it was that your mother and I let you stay up to watch Sunday night.
Nine o'clock is usually your bedtime and the 1 a.m. time originally planned for man's first steps on the moon was out of the question for you. But I have a feeling that one of the reasons they changed the time for the walk was so little guys like you could watch it.
What you saw was mankind's greatest single triumph ever.
Billions of dollars, thousands of people and all the years that have passed since man first set foot on earth were the ingredients that made this historic venture.
For that one brief moment when Neil Armstrong lowered his foot on the soil of the moon for the first time, it was easy to forget all the work and hardship the space program has caused.
It also was easy to forget the wars, the poverty and hunger, the crime, the disease, the prejudice and other failings of man while all eyes were focused on the moon.
Unfortunately, when the astronauts return and travel to the moon begins to become less historic and more commonplace, these same weaknesses of men will continue to cause a nagging shame, even while other great triumphs are recorded.
Twenty-five years from now, when you might be in a position to fly to the moon, I hope things are a little different.
I hope men on earth learn to live together in trust, so that American won't worry about what a Russian space ship is going to do when it gets to the moon.
I hope nations can work together for progress so that when one has a success like ours, others don't say it was done to cover up its imperialism.
I hope people can watch the first landing on Mars with food in their stomachs, regardless of where they live, and without the threat of cancer or other ugly diseases.
I hope these and other things happen before you're my age.
Because if they don't, every other triumph will have a very hollow feel to it.
And unless these things happen, every Apollo mission will seem not as if man is seeking to expand his knowledge, but instead, as if man is fleeing from the planet he has contaminated.