In the Shadow of the Moon Page #9

on an around-the-world trip.

Wherever we went,

people, instead of saying,

"Well, you Americans did it,"

Everywhere, they said, "We did it.

We Humankind, we the Human race,

we, people, did it."

And, I had never heard of, um...

people in different countries

use this word "We, we, we"

as emphatically as we were hearing

from Europeans, Asians, Africans...

Wherever we went,

it was, "We finally did it!"

And I thought that

was a wonderful thing.

Ephemeral, but wonderful.

[Cheering]

Cernan:
I felt that I was

literally standing on a plateau

somewhere out there in space,

a plateau that science and technology

had allowed me to get to.

But now, what I was seeing

and even more important,

what I was feeling at

that moment in time,

science and technology

had no answers for.

Literally no answers,

because there I was

and there you are...

there you are,

the Earth, dynamic, overwhelming

and I felt that the world...

there's just too much purpose,

too much logic

and it was just too beautiful

to have happened by accident.

There has to be

somebody bigger than you

and bigger than me

and I mean this in a spiritual sense

not a religious sense.

There has to be

a creator of the universe

who stands above the religions

that we ourselves create to govern our lives.

[Music playing]

Duke:
A friend of ours got us

to go to a Bible study at a tennis club.

And after that weekend, I said to Jesus,

I said, "l give you my life

and if you're real, come into my life."

And I believe and he did and I had...

I had this sense of peace

that was... that was hard to describe.

It was so dramatic

that we started sharing our story.

I say, my walk

on the Moon lasted three days

and it was a great adventure,

but my walk with God lasts forever.

Collins:

I think if you do something

that's drastically different

like flying to the Moon

and coming back again,

everyone tells you how important it is,

how wonderful it is

and how important,

important, important.

Then by comparison a lot of other things

that used to seem important

don't seem quite as much so.

And I'm not saying that I'm able to face life

with greater equanimity

because I've flown to the Moon, but I try to.

And maybe some of our

terrestrial squabbles

don't seem as important

after having flown to the Moon

than they did before.

Lovell:

We learned a lot about the Moon

but what we really learned

was about the Earth.

The fact that just from

the distance of the Moon

you could put your thumb up,

and you can hide the

Earth behind your thumb.

Everything that you have ever known...

Your loved ones, your business,

the problems of the Earth itself,

all behind your thumb.

And how insignificant we really all are.

But then how fortunate we are

to have this body

and to be able to enjoy living here

amongst the beauty of the Earth itself.

Scott:

It truly is an oasis

and we don't take very good care of it.

And I think the elevation of that awareness

is a real contribution to, you know,

saving the Earth, if you will.

Young:
Earth has changed a lot

since we started flying in Gemini.

There's a lot of things like urban pollution

and you can see that when you hit orbit now.

You can see the big cities

all have their own set of unique atmospheres,

They really do.

We ought to be looking out for our kids

and our grandkids

and what are we worried about?

The price of a gallon of gasoline,

you know, in the United States,

they're worried about $3 a gallon gas.

I said, that's awful, you know?

Bean:

Since that time,

I have not complained

about the weather one single time.

I'm glad there is weather.

I've not complained about traffic,

I'm glad there's people around.

One of the things that I did when I got home,

I went down to shopping centres

and I'd just go around there,

get an ice cream cone or something

and just watch the people go by

and think, "Boy, we're lucky to be here,

why do people complain about the Earth? "

We are living in the Garden of Eden!

Collins:

As I look back, if I use one word,

I would use the word "luck".

I just feel very lucky.

You know, Neil Armstrong

was born in 1930,

Buzz Aldrin was born in 1930,

Mike Collins was born in 1930.

I mean how lucky can you get?

We just happened along at the right time.

I feel blessed every single day.

Not a day goes by

that I don't think, "This is great,

this was wonderful..."

Somebody had to go

and they happened to pick me,

so it is great.

[Music playing]

You know, some of the tabloids

are saying that we did this

In a hanger in Arizona.

Maybe that would have been a good idea!

I don't know how I would...

grab someone by the collar

who didn't believe,

and shake them

and somehow change their mind.

Any significant event in history,

somebody's had a conspiracy theory

one way or the other.

I don't know two Americans

who have a fantastic secret

without one of them

blurting it out to the Press!

Can you imagine thousands of people

able to keep this secret?

We've been to the Moon nine times.

I mean, why did we fake it nine times...

If we faked it?

Truth needs no defence.

Nobody, nobody...

Can ever take those footsteps

I made on the surface of the Moon away from me.

[Music playing]

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