The story behind the text we used for this project and why the real risks of the Apollo 11 mission meant it needed to be written.
The Contingency Speech
By: Betsy Willett
Three days before the Apollo 11 spacecraft was set to launch, President Richard Nixon’s speech writer got a call from Apollo 8 astronaut Frank Borman, the NASA liaison to the White House. Borman told the speech writer, William Safire, that he would need to write a backup address for the president — in case of “mishaps.”
The most dangerous part of the mission wasn’t landing on the moon, Borman explained. The true danger would come when the astronauts left the moon’s surface, launching the lunar module back into space to rejoin the orbiting command ship. If they were unable to make contact with the main ship, NASA would be forced to “close down communication,” leaving Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin stranded with no hope of rescue. In a 1999 interview, Safire recalled being told that the men would either “starve to death or commit suicide.”
Mission Control monitoring the lunar landing (Credit: NASA)
If something went wrong on the descent, the lander would be stuck on the lunar surface. (Credit: NASA)
Safire quickly wrote the contingency speech. His last-minute address honored the astronauts’ bravery and their monumental accomplishment in words that may have, in an alternate reality, become iconic: “They will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.” His speech acknowledged both the astronauts’ families of the men and the American public, saying that the men’s sacrifice had brought humankind together in the relentless pursuit of knowledge.
The day before the landing, Nixon was briefed and prepared to give the remarks in case of catastrophe. That day would never come.
Only later would Safire realize the imminent danger inherent in all space missions. Each time an astronaut attempted a new mission, he or she risked certain death. In reflecting on writing the contingency speech, Safire said he had wanted to bring comfort to the American public and remind them that the loss would have come amid the most human of quests: to discover a new world.