‘Fly Me to the Moon’ Again

— Bart Howard,1954; Count Cassie and Frank Sinatra, 1962

 

Back in 1969 as a youth, I sat on my living room couch in front of a black and white TV wired to a spindly, mostly ineffective roof antenna to watch Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set down the lunar module on the surface of the moon—then, “one small step…one giant leap…” It was the realization of possibility.

 

Last Friday, I stood on the stage under the big top tent and congratulated the 35 graduates in the Class of 2024 as we launched them on a exploration mission of their own—to seek out bold new academic and social worlds in college and in the world. This too, on a smaller, human scale, was the realization of possibility. The US Space program took 8 years to get to the moon; our seniors took half that time to develop from protostars into, shining young scholars, athletes, artists, people. Their 1-13 years at Brimmer and May, culminating in graduation, were the realization of possibility.

 

 

 

Back in February—during the dark side of the New England calendar—I sat in front of my flat-screen TV and watched a US space vehicle land on the Moon once again. This was the landing of the unmanned, remote-controlled vehicle Odysseus, propelled to the Lunar South Pole by Intuitive Machines’ private capital, human ingenuity, NASA experience, Plan B-preparedness, and plain old good luck (the last bit, according to the Enterprise’s Captain Kirk—William Shatner. This craft offered several “new and exciting” aspects to space flight: terrestrial technology, lunar geography, commercial pedigree, and spiritual uplift. Here was not monumental government initiative but steadfast private enterprise realizing its possibility.

 

At the same time, in late February, any school in New England could benefit from at least a bit of “spiritual uplift.” The senior class has hit a wall of double-digit, g-forces of senioritis, everyone is feeling grumpy, and it’s hard to imagine possibility, much less realize it. But like Imaginative Machines’ Odysseus, which was thought to have crashed when it landed, the signals returned: post season varsity basketball tournament wins, the Upper School musical, the Grade 7 Trip to Washington, DC and Grade 8 Trip to New York City, the Grade 4 & 5 Musical—these successful, uplifting experiences were wonderful, achievable moonshots for our students, and the realization of possibility.

 

 

静夜思  Quiet Night Thought

床前 明月 光， Before my bed the bright moon's glow,
疑是 地上 霜. seems like frost on the ground.
举头 望 明月， I raise my head and gaze at the bright moon,
低头 思 故乡. I lower my head and think of my hometown.

— Li Bai, 701-762 CE

 

On June 3, I sat at the desk in my office in front of my hp computer monitor and watched a Scientific American website video of China’s Chang’e 6 lander cruising over the far side of the moon en route to a landing on the surface. Shot 384,000+ kilometers and a 30 days ago from Wenchang Space Launch Centre in the southern Chinese province of Hainan, Chang’e 6 has the purpose of collecting lunar samples from what we call “the dark side of the moon.” (Despite this designation, the far side is just as lit as the near side of the moon, which is the only side we are able to see. Earth’s gravity has caused “tidal locking” of our lone planetary satellite, which keeps the same side of the moon always facing us.) In 2019, China first sent a lander/rover to the moon to explore but it was not meant to bring back samples, just go “where no one has gone before” on a Moon Trek of sorts. Both missions are robotic ones, ‘un-human-ed’ vehicles, designed, built, and bought-and-paid-for by Chinese engineers and scientists. They have a vision—and aim to realize possibility.

 

“…I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.” — Pink Floyd, in the song Brain Damage, 1973
 

Today is the last day of school for the 2023-2024 school year. Members of the Class of 2025, our rising seniors, and all those that succeed them through the class of 2037, are now themselves on the launch pad, ready to blast off to realize their own possibilities. Will they go to Jupiter or Mars? We’ll just have to stay tuned to find out.