Small Steps, Giant Leaps: Apollo 11 at Fifty The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Overholt, John, Thomas Hyry, Anne-Marie Eze, Carie McGinnis, and Mary Haegert. 2019. "Small Steps, Giant Leaps: Apollo 11 at Fifty." Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Houghton Library. Published for the exhibition Small Steps, Giant Leaps: Apollo 11 at Fifty at the Houghton Library. Citable link https://nrs.harvard.edu/URN-3:HUL.INSTREPOS:37367358 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA SMALL STEPS GIANT LEAPS HOUGHTON LIBRARY CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 2019 CONTENTS FOREWORD BY THOMAS HYRY (VII) INTRODUCTION (XI) 1900–1947: THE BIRTH OF FLIGHT AND ROCKETRY (01) 1952–1968: THE SPACE RACE PROPELS AMERICA TO THE MOON (15) 1969: APOLLO 11 TO THE MOON! (33) WALKING ON THE MOON (47) FOREWORD The moon holds many paradoxes. It is constant, though variable; ubiquitous, yet unique; connected to and yet separate from the world; close by and a symbol of what lies beyond. For the entire scope of human history, the moon has served as a source of fascination, beauty, and intrigue. Civilizations throughout time and across the globe have centered the moon in their religion, mythology, and culture. Romeo swears his love to Juliet by the moon. Van Gogh, Kahlo, Monet, Debussy, Bowie, and countless others use the moon for artistic inspiration. “Blue Moon,” “Harvest Moon,” The Dark Side of the Moon, the man on the moon, Moon Palace, moon pies, “Moon River,” A Trip to the Moon, Goodnight Moon, “moonshot” — the moon plays an outsized role in our collective consciousness. When Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins made their epic journey in 1969, it represented the consummation of a long-held dream of humanity, while also pointing the way toward even bigger dreams for the future. At once a remarkable scientific achievement and cultural landmark, the moon landing remains a watershed moment in human history, now fifty years removed. The exhibition Small Steps, Giant Leaps: Apollo 11 at Fifty (on view in the Edison and Newman Room, April 29-August 3, 2019) presents the story of the Apollo 11 mission through an historical VIII lens unique to Houghton Library. The spectacular items on display IX of Dr. Samuel Johnson and Early Books and Manuscripts at Houghton in this exhibition document not only the feat itself, but the centuries Library, Anne-Marie Eze, our Director of Scholarly and Public Programs, of scientific discovery necessary to send a human to the moon. The Carie McGinnis, our Preservation Librarian and Registrar, and Mary exhibition allows viewers to travel through time and demonstrates Haegert, our Reproductions Coordinator. the way one discovery leads to another and how our knowledge and Beyond helping us understand and celebrate the moon landing, understanding of the world’s place in the universe is constantly Small Steps, Giant Leaps serves as an appreciation of science evolving. In addition to documenting the discoveries themselves, the itself and the scientific method. With items presented in roughly exhibition reveals how thinkers have created and presented their chronological order, it can be tempting to think of the discoveries ideas in different eras and how the preservation of books, manuscripts, that led to the Apollo 11 mission as linear and inevitable; they were and other media provides a critical foundation in our efforts to not. Throughout human history, we have seen eras where scientists understand our past. and scientific discovery have been treated with skepticism, scorn, and Like the moon landing (though much more modest in scope), even violence, requiring not only brilliance but also courage. As we an exhibition like this requires imagination, determination, and consider and appreciate the fiftieth anniversary of the moon landing, collaboration. This exhibition would not have been possible without let us also use it as an opportunity to reaffirm a commitment to the generosity and vision of a private collector, a close collaborator scientific inquiry and to approaches to public policy based on evidence, of Houghton Library who wishes to remain anonymous. His intellect inspiration, and a commitment to the common good. contributed crucial curatorial insight, and his passion pushed the library in new directions and to new heights. For this exhibition, — Thomas Hyry, Florence Fearrington Librarian of Houghton Library he has loaned extraordinary materials from his private collection, items that are either unique or not already held by the library. To celebrate the occasion and honor this gesture, this commemorative publication will focus only on the loaned items. Our chief collaborator for this exhibition deserves our gratitude as he joins the ranks of many other Harvard alumni who have built private collections and partnered with us to ensure that their work could be harnessed for research, teaching, and enrichment. Many Houghton collection items featured in this exhibition were donated to the library by private collectors, and David P. Wheatland and Harrison D. Horblit made especially important contributions to the library’s holdings in the history of science. We are also indebted to the many Houghton staff members who contributed to the exhibition and this catalog, chiefly John Overholt, Curator of the Donald and Mary Hyde Collection X INTRODUCTION Fifty years ago, 600 million people watched Neil Armstrong descend the lunar module Eagle’s ladder, stand on the moon, and remark, “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind” (see page 49). While Armstrong indeed took but a single step onto the lunar surface, his achievement was the culmination of a series of small steps and giant leaps in human understanding and innovation, advances driven This simple diagram announces by the curiosity and wonder of countless generations who looked up a profound and highly contested at the heavens and tried to make sense of the world around them. shift in scientific understanding, with the sun replacing the Earth The story of Apollo 11 is fascinating because it involves so many as the center of the universe. interconnected developments in the history of math and science, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543), De engineering and technology, and travel and exploration, driven Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium by both peaceful inquiry and military necessity. This exhibition Libri VI. Nuremberg: Johannes Petreius, 1543. highlights these connections using rare and important objects, including many carried by the astronauts during their trip to the moon, Houghton Library, Harvard to animate the stories that made Armstrong’s “small step” possible. University. WKR 13.3.5. Bequest of Although the mighty Saturn V rocket carrying Armstrong, William King Richardson, 1951. Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins lifted off on the morning of July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 can trace its origins to the beginning of the scientific revolution. In April 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus published his revolutionary De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres). The successive insights of Copernicus, XII Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, René Descartes, and Isaac Newton XIII moving through space) could be represented as algebraic equations, gave humanity the tools required to precisely describe — and therefore manipulated to find solutions, and graphed with precision in what is accurately predict — the motion of objects ranging from an apple now known as the Cartesian coordinate system. falling off a tree to a rocket carrying astronauts bound for the moon. The following year, Galileo, who was nearing the end of his life, In direct opposition to both conventional wisdom and Catholic under house arrest, and prohibited from publishing in Italy, had his Church doctrine, Copernicus showed that astronomical calculations final book printed in Holland. In Discorsi e Dimostrazioni Matematiche are made much simpler by assuming the Earth revolves around the Intorno a Due Nuove Scienze (Discourses and Mathematical sun, rather than sitting still at the center of the universe. In an Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences), Galileo demonstrated attempt to deflect theological criticism from this monumental, that a ball rolling down an inclined plane experiences uniform controversial insight, Copernicus’s editor, Andreas Osiander, inserted acceleration due to gravity, its velocity increasing linearly through an unauthorized preface claiming that the work was meant purely time. Combining this observation with his formulation of the concept as a hypothetical exercise rather than as a statement of how the of inertia, whereby an object will keep moving in the same direction heavens truly behaved. unless acted on by an external force (such as air resistance or Of course, other luminaries grasped that heliocentrism was friction), Galileo concluded that the trajectory of a ball dropped off indeed a description of reality and worked on providing important the mast of a moving ship or shot from a cannon will trace out the refinements and impassioned defenses of Copernican theory. In shape of a parabola. 1609 and 1610, Kepler and Galileo published their respective works, Newton, who was born soon after Galileo died, wrote, “If I Astronomia Nova (New Astronomy) and Sidereus