To Touch the Rattle

It has become very nearly a commonplace to say that men have grown bored with moon shots. Somehow, the idea of Richard Nixon landing in Peking, 6,922 miles away from home, seems at the moment to stir more excitement than what is for some the repetitive prospect of three more astronauts slinging 239,000 miles off the planet. The sense of deja vu is especially unjustified for Apollo 15, because the mission is the most perilous to date, with greater than usual concern for the safety of the explorers (see SCIENCE).

No one can dare to say at this point which voyage will ultimately prove more vital for the survival of mankind. Peace is a desperate need, but curiosity and adventure are profoundly encoded in the human brain. Peace is also a slow, perilous process of equilibrium, but deep space is a siren summoning the race to an unimaginable catalogue of unknowns. To reach the moon is only to touch the rattle dangling over the crib. The reach has lost its magic--or perhaps not yet really found it--because like infants, men scarcely can conceive of what lies beyond in space and time. Such perspectives, even in man's minuscule neighborhood of the galaxy, tend to reduce the affairs of earth's superpowers to cosmic unimportance.

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