South Bend, December 7, 1972
The Last Flight to the Moon
Today at 12:30 a.m. the rocket of Apollo 17 lifted off from Cape Kennedy in Florida. It streaked like a shining comet into the sky, turning the night into day. It was an overwhelming sight. This is the last flight to the moon of the Apollo Program.
December 19, 1972
On December 11 the lunar module “Challenger” landed safely in the Taurus-Littrow Valley. The astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt moved across the terrain on the “lunar rover,” collecting soil and rock samples. Although the images of this lunar expedition sent back to earth would have been fascinating enough, the Christmas shoppers in the malls did not let themselves to be distracted. Moon landings have already become too much of a routine. The big enthusiasm about the first moon landing three years ago has given way to the sober realization that there is not much to be gained on the moon. While the public interest in lunar landings has been fading away, their rich scientific yield will occupy laboratories for years to come. With today’s perfect splashdown of Apollo 17 in the Pacific near Samoa, the series of lunar landings of the Apollo Program has been completed. No further lunar missions are planned by NASA for the foreseeable future.
Addendum
[The landing on the moon was the most significant exploratory enterprise of the 20th century. It flung the door to human spaceflights wide open. The possibility of establishing manned stations in space has become a tangible reality.]
South Bend, December 21, 1972
The Grundvertrag
By today’s signing of the Grundvertrag or Grundlagenvertrag (Basic Treaty between the BRD and the DDR, recognizing each other as sovereign states) in East Berlin, the German question was brought to a temporary solution. The long expected recognition of the DDR or East Germany as a sovereign state, according to international law, has thereby been accomplished. While the world at large tacitly accepts the existence of two German states in Central Europe as a given fact, it remains to be seen how the Germans themselves will be able to cope with the situation. Can the BRD as a free, democratic society and the DDR as a totalitarian, Marxist-Leninist state exist side by side in the long run?
Note
[After the vote in the Bundestag on June 21, 1973, the Grundvertrag or Grundlagenvertrag came into effect. With this Treaty the BRD and the DDR were bound to recognize each other as sovereign states and to observe the inviolability of their borders. But the Grundlagenvertrag did not exclude reunification. The Treaty opened the way for both German states to join the United Nations. In September 1973, the BRD and the DDR were admitted as members to the United Nations.]