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Chris Higgins
The Moon Disaster That Never Happened
by Chris Higgins - September 29, 2009 - 2:26 PM

Note: William Safire, columnist and former speechwriter, died on Sunday at age 79. I have reposted this blog post, originally from October 29, 2007, as a tribute to a great writer.

Apollo 11 patchIn July 1969, the world watched as the crew of Apollo 11 successfully entered lunar orbit, landed, then blasted off and returned to Earth. At each step of the way there were dangers and NASA had backup plans in case something went terribly wrong — though there wasn’t much NASA could do from 384,403 kilometers away. I recently came across a 1999 essay by William Safire, published in The New York Times — thanks again for opening those archives, Times — discussing the speech Safire wrote for Nixon just in case the mission failed. From Safire’s article:

The most dangerous part of the trip was not landing the little module on the moon, but in launching it back up to the mother ship. If that failed, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin could not be rescued. Mission Control would have to “close down communications” and, as the world agonized, let the doomed astronauts starve to death or commit suicide.

Nixon aides H. R. Haldeman and Peter Flanigan told me to plan for that tragic contingency. On July 18, 1969, I recommended that “in event of moon disaster . . . the President should telephone each of the widows-to-be” and after NASA cut off contact “a clergyman should adopt the same procedure as a burial at sea, commending their souls to ‘the deepest of the deep,’ concluding with the Lord’s Prayer.” A draft Presidential speech was included.

Read more, including the text of the speech, in Safire’s piece Disaster Never Came. There’s also a Wikipedia page with links to external information, including a scan of the original memo.

(Via Kottke.org.)

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Comments (9)

  1. This reminds me of Operation Dirty Trick, which you can look up on wickipedia. It has to do with blaming a possible failure of the 1962 Mercury mission and the subsequent death of John Glenn on Cuba to insight a war.

    posted by josh on 10-29-2007 at 2:09 pm

  2. Reading that article gave me cold chills. “Mission Control would have to ”close down communications” and, as the world agonized, let the doomed astronauts starve to death or commit suicide.” They’d have to cut off the communications, I suppose, so that the public wouldn’t be freaked out by the astronaut’s panicked pleas for help that couldn’t be given to them, or the sounds of their suffering. Gadzooks, what a ghastly fate!

    posted by bibli0phile on 10-29-2007 at 2:51 pm

  3. This is testimony to the bravery of the Astronauts.

    They knew that this scenario was entirely possible before they volunteered.

    posted by Willis on 10-31-2007 at 10:01 am

  4. What’s not clear here? Oh, sorry, nothing is. The fact is that until man goes [back] to the moon, we will never know if this was a hoax or not. My money is on the Chinese getting there first/next.

    posted by What is NASA? on 11-29-2007 at 10:58 am

  5. If I were up there, knowing my fate, I wouldn’t starve…I’d just go for a long walk into space…
    (”Major Tom” is in my head now…)

    posted by Helenann on 9-29-2009 at 3:23 pm

  6. One thing to also consider if the Armstrong and Aldrin had been marooned then Michael Collins would have to make that long journey back home alone. I wrote a post for the 40th anniversary on this subject. http://www.blakehelms.net/2009/07/michael-collins-the-forgotten-member-of-apollo-11/

    posted by Blake Helms on 9-29-2009 at 3:39 pm

  7. “What is NASA?”…you are a complete tool.

    posted by graham on 9-29-2009 at 5:01 pm

  8. Don’t worry Graham, conspiracy nuts are just that–nuts.

    The only way to keep a secret among three people is if two of them are dead; and anything that comes along to prove what the conspiracy theory is against only becomes part of the conspiracy itself.

    This just means if “we go to the moon again”, and those astronauts find what was left behind, it will simply mean the “new astronauts” are also faking it.

    posted by Wayne on 9-30-2009 at 9:40 am

  9. How true Wayne. People are denying the holocaust, Jesus Christ and the Moon Missions. Something’s are true if you believe them or not. There is no arguing with an idiot. Hats off to all the courageous men and women of the NASA.

    posted by KevinGA on 9-30-2009 at 12:45 pm

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