Some fifty years ago, more than 200,000 miles from the earth, two men in white suits stepped out of their spacecraft. And when that first man, that American Neil Armstrong, stepped on to the white-dusted surface of the moon, he uttered these words to the entire human race: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

In the vast variety of words, there is a category reserved for space. Like Armstrong’s words coming from the moon, those words about space, like the twinkling stars in the sky, have shed light on our path to explore the big unknown beyond our earth. With their magic, they can implant new dreams in our heads, inspire us, and alter the goals that we would like to achieve later in life. They are a calling from the sky, a message for us to take action, to step forward in our exploration into remote space.

Neil Armstrong’s words not only speak about the importance of the moon landing, but also convey a message to all of us: if what you’re doing seems physically small, it can have an impact that alters the course of human history for the greater good. For me, and perhaps for our whole generation, Armstrong’s words are the seeds of a dream in the fertile soil of our imaginations and aspirations, inspiring us to think big but focus on the small things we are doing, so as to make our own step for humankind.

Just like we are now seeded with dreams and inspired by his words, Armstrong and his generation were also inspired by words about space articulated in their time or before them. In fact, if we go decades further back, we will find a steady and increasing flourishing of science fiction in literature, by writers from Jules Verne and Fritz Lang all the way to Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. The words from science fiction were so influential then that Michael Benson claimed in The New York Times in 2019 that “science fiction sent man to the moon.”

The story “The Sentinel,” written by Arthur Clarke in 1948 and first published in 1951, left a deep impression on me. It tells a tale of humans going to the moon and finding alien structures on top of the surface. I still remember what the narrator of the story says: “Perhaps you understand now why that crystal pyramid was set upon the Moon instead of on the Earth. Its builders were not concerned with races still struggling up from savagery.” The narrator, an experienced selenologist, continues, “They would be interested in our civilization only if we proved our fitness to survive — by crossing space and so escaping from the Earth, our cradle.” The words in this story ignited a flame, however small, in the hearts of readers at the time, people like Armstrong and his contemporaries, to look at the moon and imagine all kinds of things about it. When they did, instead of just looking away, they dreamed about the day that humankind would finally take our first steps there.

The power of words — whether in the oral or written form — often seems at first to be a dream, a fiction, that seems impossible to realize. But, no matter how impossible the dream or story, words empower us to look past what is possible in the present. They inspire us beyond the gravity of the earth.

Words not only inspire us with beautiful dreams and ideals but more importantly move us to take action, motivating us toward realizing those dreams and ideals. We know Armstrong’s words were, historically, a victory speech for mankind, but they were first and foremost for the Americans in the ongoing Space Race at the time. The Space Race event that really struck me personally was the speech made by John F. Kennedy on September 12, 1962, at Rice University, in his effort to persuade the American people to support the Apollo program. You may ask, “Why did he need to persuade the American people?” Because at that time, the Apollo program wasn’t achieving much, but the Soviet Union already had many space “victories.” President Kennedy said, “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept.” Motivating an entire people to sacrifice their hard-earned tax dollars for a seemingly meaningless project is hard, but President Kennedy managed to do that exact thing. His words convinced American people to sacrifice, to take concerted action and deliver their best in their goal of winning the Space Race in that historical time. They have also motivated me to chase the impossible, because what seems impossible today may be possible tomorrow.

Today, we have explored the moon, landed rovers on Mars and sent other devices further beyond. But in our exploration of space, we still have many obstacles to overcome and enemies to fight — the enemy of potential bad aliens, the enemy of a potential cosmic catastrophe, the enemy of the many unknowns, the enemy of our own complacency, inaction, and un-imaginativeness, and the enemy of our deafness to words of spatial dreams and inspiration.

All around us now, there are words of reaching for the impossible, for the depthless cosmos, that motivate and support us, coming from our friends, our family, and even strangers we have never met before. A few words spoken with great spirit and valor can kindle a fire, hold a lesson, and have tremendous force that is more valuable to us than many years of blind and unreflective experiences, that can shape our history more profoundly than is presently visible. Words circulating in our everyday lives are perhaps the greatest teachers that have ever originated. We should take every opportunity to learn from these great teachers, while we are surrounded by them every day, as stars shine and shape our dreams.

Sources:

Anderson, Hephzibah. “The Fiction That Predicted Space Travel.” BBC. June 21, 2019. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190621-the-man-who-created-our-vision-of-space.

Armstrong, Neil. “Neil Armstrong Quotes.” BrainyQuote. https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/neil-armstrong-quotes.

Benson, Michael. “Science Fiction Sent Man to the Moon.”
The New York Times. July 20, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/20/opinion/sunday/moon-rockets-space-fiction.html.

Clarke, Arthur C. The Sentinel.
https://espritsf.fr/wp-content/uploads/Clarke-Arthur-C-The-Sentinel.pdf.

Kennedy, John F. “President John Kennedy’s Rice Stadium Moon Speech.” Originally given September 12, 1962. https://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm.