Big History and the Significance of the 1969–1972 Apollo Lunar Landings

Abstract

Putting Apollo in the ‘big historical’ perspective of human evolution over approx. 2.5 million years, it can be seen that the success of NASA’s human lunar landing programme at the end of the 1960s signified a key “marker” of the level of technological progress achieved during the last 12,000 years. This achievement, it is considered, represents the commencement of a new stage of the human evolutionary path. Although born out of the planet-wide social and economic conflict of the Cold War, it is also argued that the Apollo programme bought a heightened level of environmental awareness and a global cultural identity. The US/NASA success may also have accelerated the eventual collapse of Soviet Union, as part of short-term geo-political history, post WW2. In addition, there were environmental consequences, with humanity seeing the Earth as a vulnerable “oasis” in the Cosmos, effectively existing as a “spaceship” in a hostile Universe. Approximately 650 million people watched Apollo 11’s Moon-landing success and, despite the short-term national competition at its birth, it showed in an inspiring and heroic way that humanity can achieve extraordinary goals. It is contended that the ‘gifts of Apollo’, including its many technological, scientific and inspirational legacies, have left humanity in a more positive state than it would have been otherwise. It is argued that humankind is now better equipped to expand across the Solar System and eventually the Galaxy, entering a new stage of evolution as a space-faring species.