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Whether used for good or ill, courage has never been in large supply in any society. Today's troubled feeling that it used to be far more common stems from the relatively recent Western belief that individualism equals virtue. The notion is contrary to the older (and Eastern) conviction that virtue lies in seeking balance with the community on earth and with the universe beyond. Especially in America, where individual courage once tamed the wilderness, pessimists now see an antlike mass society. There is no West to be wild in; the only terra incognita is under water. The plains are paved, farms are corporations, and, with too many of the young, dreams of adventure have been replaced by the haze of pot. Even in war, the brave man is not often truly alone with death. The team supports him, the group succors him. In the Philippine night, during World War II, Admiral Mitscher ordered an entire fleet to turn on its lights. The lives of 100,000 men were risked to let some 200 pilots see their way home. In Viet Nam, 50 planes suspended their air war for eight hours to try to rescue Major Jim Kasler, a popular ace who had gone down over North Viet Nam.
Yet a national character is like a genetic one; it may die in the grandfather only to reappear in the face of a child. Seemingly, whenever America has been in crisis, courage has been reasserted. The quality has both old and new dimensions in the technological age. Man's restless probes into the unknown have not exhausted his chances of danger and courage; they have merely spurred him to probe further. The more he knows, the bigger his frontier, from the atom to space. In a day of committee decisions and anonymous heroes, he has changed his style—but not much else.
Despite the moon shot's vast supportive forces, the astronauts themselves are essentially loners. Before they take off, they have no guarantees of success, let alone survival. Airborne, they can be aided only so far. After that, like the very earliest adventurers, they are on their own. Out in space, the future confronts the past. If they are stranded, no Navy will light their way home, no friendly tribes will take them in.
Grace Under Pressure
Sometimes it seems as if the astronauts have been chosen by some secret P.R. quotient to project a wholesome, understated image. Bravery yes, but no heroics; little eccentricities yes, but no flamboyance. Their press conferences are small Seas of Tranquillity. But, as with all other professional risk takers, the very absence of excitement suggests the presence of courage. In most valorous men there must be a diminution of the imaginative faculty. "Neither the sun nor death can be looked at steadily," wrote La Rochefoucauld. The talk of "fuel margins" and EVAs is, in part, a way of giving the eyes a rest. Moreover, each astronaut has the kind of test-pilot fatalism that calms —and deadens—the nerves. They need it. In the past, there were more imagined terrors to be dispelled. Today, the known dangers of failure, mechanical and human, are more numerous and harder to dismiss. The astronauts knew that if, on landing, the lunar module tilted more than 35°, they would be marooned on the moon. Each could remember that, with the best life insurance science could provide, three colleagues burned to death in a spaceship.