I don’t think most people realize how terrifying the Moon Landings were. They look back at it, and see this great achievement in human spaceflight but don’t grasp the gravity of the situation. (No pun intended)
OP mentions Michael Collins, who is often forgotten. He was the third member of the Apollo 11 mission, who manned the Command Module whilst the other two landed with the Lander Module. People might hear that and thing he got the short end of the stick, but honestly… I’d argue the opposite. At 20:17:40 UTC on Sunday July 20 1969 the Landing Module touched down on the Moon. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldren spent 21 hours, 36 minutes on the surface of the Moon before beginning ascent to rendezvous with Michael Collins in the Command Module.
This is where things get unnerving. The thruster used on the Lunar Ascent Propulsion System used a hypergolic fuel, which is a fuel that spontaneously ignites when the fuel and oxidizer meet. Hypergolic fuels are useful for when spacecrafts need reliable ignition or repeated ignitions, however they’re nasty things. The specific fuel used for this thruster was a mixture of Aerozine 50 and Dinitrogen tetroxide. These are incredibly toxic, and more importantly incredibly corrosive. In fact, they are so corrosive that once you fire an engine you essentially have to completely rebuild it in order to reuse it. This means that the engine on the Lunar Ascent Propulsion System had never been fired before.
That engine was their bridge home. If it failed, they would be stranded on the surface of the Moon. As mentioned the Moon Landing lasted roughly 22 hours. For twenty two hours the two astronauts were on the moon, completely unsure if the never-before fired thruster would even fire up. Completely unsure if they’d be able to go home.
This picture shows the entirety of the human race on January 21st, 1969. All of it except the man who took it, that is. Micheal Collins stayed back on the Command Module during the mission to await Aldrin and Armstrong’s return… or potential lack thereof. This earned him the title “The Loneliest Man in the Universe”. For about 50 minutes for each orbit around the Moon Collins would be out of contact with the earth. That means for about 50 minutes during each orbit he’d have no way to contact any other human, completely alone over 230,000 miles from earth. For roughly 50 minutes during each orbit Collins had no clue whether his fellow astronauts were still alive, and them not returning was a very real possibility. Orders were in place that if the other two could not return to the command module that Collins would return alone.
This wasn’t just some disaster protocol either. This was a very real possibility. Both the astronauts, and NASA were very much prepared for it to happen. So much so that Richard Nixon, the president at the time, had a speech prepared if it were to happen. It doesn’t sugar coat it. It starts off
“Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace. These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery.“
If that isn’t bone chilling, then I’m not really sure what is. People often romanticize space exploration, but back then, and even today, well… this is the reality of it. All of that is what astronauts go through.
So I’m a big fan of the idea that humans are “space orcs”, and today it got me thinking about something else.
Human birth is pretty unique among mammals. Not only are our birth canals narrower than standard due to being bipeds, but we have a larger head to body ratio then any other mammal. As a result of this, the only way to fit a baby’s head through a person’s birth canal is for them to be born very early, and massively underdeveloped.
Other mammals are capable of walking and running within the first day of being born, where as a human baby doesn’t even have strong enough neck muscles to hold up their own head.
They can’t see, they can’t crawl, they don’t have the coordination to grab things, and they have a soft spot on the skull that leaves part of the brain incredibly vulnerable. And while an adult can adapt to a range of temperatures, babies have to be constantly monitored to make sure they aren’t chilled or over heating.
Can you imagine you’re an alien, who knows humans as these highly adaptable endurance machines that can eat almost anything and survive tremendous physical pain and injury, and you learn that their young are so fragile. That they emerge from the womb barely able to function biologically.
And suddenly you remember all those humans on your crew who get attached little creatures. The toughest, burliest people who will coo and coddle over fluffy little cats and call lizards babies. And you realise that their whole species developed to care for these tiny, vulnerable, defenceless babies, and that kind of attachment tends to spill over a little.
And now you understand that old adage, that the most dangerous humans are the ones whose young are in danger. Because if they’re going to stand a chance at surviving until adulthood then human parents have to be willing to defend their children with their lives, and that is exactly what they do.
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