Most people alive today were not yet born when the Apollo 11 mission took place and have no direct memory of it. Even for those who do recall, it’s easy to forget that Apollo unfolded during one of the most turbulent periods in our nation’s history. Many Americans felt strongly that other concerns — poverty, education, civil rights — should take precedence. Polls put the space program at or near the top of the list of federal programs that people thought should be abolished. The mission’s success nonetheless became synonymous with our potential as a species. If we could put a man on the moon, we could accomplish anything.
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Watch Our Moonshot for the Stage
NEW YORK — At 2:56 a.m. Coordinated Universal Time on July 21, 1969, humans for the first time stepped onto another world. It was a kind of awakening. More than 500 million people around the world watched the event live on television — the largest-ever broadcast audience at the time — and tens of millions more listened on the radio. All with the same perspective: of the moon, symbol of the unattainable, attained; and of our own Earth, a pale blue dot in the vast emptiness of space.
How best to celebrate this complex history, and the role of The New York Times in covering it? All month the reporters and editors of The Times’ science desk have been publishing articles, essays, photo galleries and even a poem reflecting on the legacy of Apollo 11, and on the promise and challenges of a new era of space exploration.
On Sunday night, The Times presents another step in its exploration: A short play, built from the words of the men and women who made the Apollo missions happen. The production strives to honor their dedication and recapture the emotions of a moment in time when, amid social upheaval, something extraordinary was achieved. As only theater can, it means to convey the experience of sharing an event that belongs to all Americans.
Tickets for the live event at Town Hall in New York are nearly sold out. But if you visit youtube.com/nytimes on Sunday night at 7 p.m. ET, you can watch a livestream of the show.
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The story of Apollo 11 is the American “Odyssey” — a tale to be retold again and again, each time revealing something new. Fifty or 500 years from now, may it stand as a reminder of what is possible: We could, and we did, together.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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