’’Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay to rest in peace," Nixon says to the camera. “For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.”This was the plan. If the Apollo 11 astronauts, who landed on the moon 43 years ago today, had found themselves on that chalky surface without enough oxygen or power, unable to reconnect with the command module orbiting above – if they were, in short, stranded, President Richard Nixon was prepared to inform the country that night on television.Before giving the speech, the President would have made telephone calls to the “widows to be” to offer condolences. After final goodbyes, and perhaps recommendations to the astronauts on how to close their lives, the plans called for Mission Control to “close down communications” with the Lunar Module. In a public ritual likened to burial at sea, clergyman would then have commended their souls to “the deepest of the deep”Read the rest over at Motherboard.