In honor of the launch of Artermis II, let me talk about one of my favorite songs — Apollo [VIP Mix] by Pure 100%. And IT HAS to be the VIP mix, because its commentary on the space race is more explicit in that version.
Explanation on why this slaps and why it encapsulates my feelings on the space race under the cut.
THE SPACE RACE
First, some background on the space race. It's post-WW2, and the US of A and the U of SSR are engaged in a dick-measuring contest in who can be the World's Next Top Hegemon which we know now as the Cold War.
Because of the destruction mutually assured by both superpowers having nuclear weapons, they couldn't duke it out the "traditional" way. Both countries could not use the wartime facilities and resources they had built up for their intended purpose, so they refitted their into war machine into a space machine. This period marked an unprecedented amount of government investment for space exploration — the Space Age.
The space race was on. The USSR actually beat the USA in terms of many technological milestones. However, most of that was eventually overshadowed. See, the USSR may have been the first to have a man successfully come back from space and to have a spacecraft land on the moon, but the USA was the first to have a man on a spacecraft land on the moon and come back — and perhaps, more importantly, TELEVISE it.
"Without television, the Moon landing would have been a merely impressive achievement - an expensive stunt, to the cynical," remarked the New Yorker's Joshua Rothman. "Instead, seen live, unedited, and everywhere, it became a genuine experience of global intimacy."
- Apollo 11: 'The greatest single broadcast in television history'
The USA had less "firsts" and launched less rockets, but they made the space race into a compelling spectator sport that had the entire country (and the rest of the world) invested in their success. While it was a contest of technological hard power on paper, it was the soft power of marketing and media that "won" the race for the Americans.
In that historic broadcast, we can see President Nixon calling the Apollo 11 astronauts from the White House to the Moon. The world was amazed to see this two-way communication from different celestial bodies! A scientific accomplishment! New heights! The possibilities!
And THIS call is the sample that this EDM song is centered around.
SAMPLING THE APOLLO 11 NIXON PHONE CALL
So, what does this all have to do with a 21st century EDM song by a South Korean producer?
I cannot emphasize enough how successful and impactful that broadcast was — not just to the American psyche, but the global psyche.
This time was not exactly all sunshine and daisies for the Americans. The Nixon administration was notoriously corrupt and there was a loud, growing dissatisfaction from the Vietnam War. And yet, the moon landing gave Americans much-needed hope and unity. It was the promise of progress in the midst of war and turmoil. It was a demonstration of the unifying humanism of the US in a time when most news showed the US to be brutal monsters.
And more importantly, it was positive international PR. See, Neil Armstrong and the Americans declared it not just as a victory for the US, but as a "leap for mankind," invoking the idea of the global village. That phone call with the president wasn't just an endorsement of the Apollo mission — it was the key ingredient.
This united the world in a period of space age optimism. There was a boom in sci-fi, stories of interstellar exploration, and imaginings of a utopia beyond the stars. No longer would we be warring, divided nations, but one race — the human race — as we take on space, the final frontier. Everyone anticipated an inevitable age of global "peace and tranquility" (as Nixon put it in his phone call) of moon settlements and further planetary discoveries.
And it just...never happened.
I'VE BEEN WAITING A LIFETIME / TO BE WITH YOU AGAIN
Just like how the dissolution of the USSR represented the death of the dream of a proletarian utopia, there is also a dream of space age utopia whose ghost haunts us to this day.
While Russia and the USA still have their space programs, they have and probably never will receive investment on the level of the Space Age ever again. Errant billionaires like Bezos and Musk are trying to revive this dream of space colonies and the final frontier, but its clear that the government and the zeitgeist has moved on. Our dreams have been forcibly grounded — technology has not ushered in a utopia, but has instead circled back to feudalism and imperialist domination.
And even back then, the space race was filled with death and sacrifices. Nazi scientists on both sides, the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation, animals and people dying in missions, lives needlessly lost in the name of progress — as the song goes, "I don't see anything going wrong here."
And yet, the hope that mission brought hasn't really died, has it? All that space racing weren't all vanity projects that went completely nowhere. The International Space Station DOES have a multi-national community living in space. Apollo, the song, has this mood of parting and saying "I'm moving on," but it ends with saying "you'll never be the same."
And it's true. Perhaps humanity did not accomplish its dreams of sailing the stars, but it has been irrevocably changed since. We HAVE become a global village, just not in the way we expected. Honestly, I don't think we ever truly gave up on the dream of communist space utopia.
With the launch of Artemis II during a time of great anxiety and the seemingly endless turmoil of war, my mind is reminded of the Apollo mission. "I've been thinking of you as odd as it seems..."
This jump scared me on Facebook. Everyone in the comments is arguing about which continents are visible and not, you know, the deterioration of the polar caps.
After seeing the Earth from the moon, Neil Armstrong said it changed his perception of humanity. Before there were arbitrary divisions and strife, but afterwards he only saw one people, all losers who hadn't been on the moon ever.
