Are we partakers in mankind’s giant leap?

In his speech of May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy of the United States of America stated that America should set the goal of landing man on the Moon and bringing him safely back home within a decade from that time.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) got the cue and started to embark on innovative programmes aimed at landing man on Earth’s natural satellite. Engineers, designers, astro-physicists, mathematicians, communications specialists, pilots and a host of other professionals continuously exchanged notes to deliver on the President’s vision.

The Apollo programme was born, albeit to a disastrous start: the Apollo 1 crew members (three gentlemen) were killed by cabin fire on January 27, 1967, as they conducted flight tests of their spacecraft. This notwithstanding, the Apollo programme continued and several other missions were launched.

It was Apollo 11 that eventually landed man on the Moon. The historic event took place on 20th July, 1969. The crew members were Michael Collins, Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin. Michael Collins remained in the command module, which kept orbiting the Moon as Neil and Buzz descended onto the lunar surface, aboard a vehicle known as the lunar module, which had separated from the command module.

Neil Armstrong was the first to come out of the lunar module and set foot on the Moon, becoming the first human being ever to set foot on a different world. As he stepped on the lunar sand, he produced a historic statement: “A small step for a man, but a huge leap for mankind”.

In the meantime, Buzz Aldrin got preoccupied with something else. At that time Buzz was a church elder at the Webster Presbyterian Church and had sought permission from his congregation, and from the General Assembly of his church, to administer Holy Communion to himself in space, to become the first man in history to do so. During the solemn occasion, he read a text he had brought from Earth, which had been copied from chapter 15 of Saint John’s Gospel, which referred to Jesus Christ as “the Vine” and His disciples as the “branches”. He then proceeded to pour out the wine he had brought from Earth into a chalice, and watched it “gracefully” descend to the bottom of the chalice under the influence of the Moon’s gravity (which is only one sixth that of Earth). He then ate the bread (also brought from Earth) and drank the wine.

Aldrin was later to write in a magazine that it was quite remarkable that the first meal ever consumed on the Moon’s surface comprised Holy Communion elements.

Nasa had advised Aldrin to keep the commemoration of the Holy Communion to himself and never to make public statements about it. They (NASA) at that time were reeling from a lawsuit from an atheist who had been displeased with the broadcasting of a Genesis scripture from space by the crew of Apollo 8.

The lunar landing was a giant leap for mankind indeed. But, I presume, not for all mankind. I would urge that we diligently search within ourselves and see if we, as the nation of Malawi, have been part of the giant leap. My feeling is that we have been left far behind. We have hardly been part of the small technological steps and, much less, the giant leaps that the world has taken. In the wake of the 2015 phase of xenophobia, an angry South African charged that although Malawians were noisy people, they could not so much as produce their own toilet tissue. This, of course, was the height of rudeness, but it ought to jolt us into an alert state of consciousness.

The story of the lunar landing I have narrated in this article – save the bit about the Holy Communion – is common knowledge everywhere in the world but in Malawi. Malawians simply do not read. As a result, they are not able to follow anything happening in the world, except football and politics. There is a mock-up of the lunar module at MUBAS (formerly the Polytechnic) in Blantyre, close to the Porter’s Lodge. Very few people know what it is, and yet thousands have walked past it, and still do.

The widespread non-reading culture, among others, is keeping us from making small steps in innovation. We therefore miss out big time on the giant leaps happening in this world. Little wonder that we cannot make our own tissue, preferring instead to import even the most basic of products like toothpicks. It should not surprise any sane Malawian that we are in deep mess as far as forex is concerned.