The Moral Vision
Moon Mission
~ 15 ~
The 3100-ton Apollo 11 seemed a giant. It was as
high as a 36-storey building, having 8 million parts
and 91 engines installed in it. On the top was the
comparatively small machine, the Columbia, in
which the astronauts were seated to set off on their
historic journey.
The space machine was duly blasted off, circling the
earth for two and a half hours. Then its speed
increased to 403 miles per minute and on reaching
an altitude of 3000 miles the Columbia separated
from the rest of the machines. It was so equipped
that the seating space for the astronauts was only as
much as in an ordinary taxi. Finally they alighted
on the moon from where they gathered 46 pounds
of moon-earth, leaving equipment worth 5 Lakh
pounds behind them. They also left their footprints
on its surface, which hopefully will remain intact
for half a million years.
It was only after such highly elaborate preparations
that the “small step” could be taken which was
going to result in such a “giant leap” for mankind”.
