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‘We Came in Peace for All Mankind’: Apollo 11 and Peace Rhetoric

    NASA's image of the lunar plaque affixed to a pillar on the Apollo 11 spacecraft

    On July 20th, 1969, the astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins made history as the first men to reach the moon. With them, strapped to the metal of the step ladder that took them down onto the moon’s surface, they brought a message of peace:

    HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON

    JULY 1969 A.D.

    WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND

    The plaque was subsequently removed from the ladder and placed on the surface on the moon, where it remains to this day. Although the men raised the American flag as a symbol of their endeavour, their message of peace was international: ‘for all mankind’. Next to it, in a small white cloth bag inches away from the plaque, was a silicon disc with microscopic messages from 73 countries, all expressing messages of peace. For example, the President of Brazil (Artur da Costa e Silva) contributed: ‘I pray God that this brilliant achievement of science remain always at the service of peace and of mankind’, while the Prime Minister of India (Indira Gandhi) likewise expressed: ‘I fervently hope that this event will usher in an era of peaceful endeavour for all mankind’.[1] The Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago (Eric Williams), wrote ‘It is our earnest hope for mankind that while we gain the moon, we shall not lose the world’.[2] In a decade which saw several decolonial wars of independence, Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East, and the Cold War (which in part manifested in the ‘Space Race’ between the USA and the USSR), how are these messages hopeful, if not contradictory?

    The investment of peace in space was reflected in proposals by the US and USSR, in 1957 and 1958 respectively, for peaceful activity in outer space, which was fortified by the Outer Space Treaty (1967) and the Moon Treaty (1979), which mandated that the moon and other celestial bodies be used for ‘peaceful purposes’. (However, Bin Cheng (1997) and others have shown that ‘peaceful’ is open to interpretation, with the US conflating ‘peaceful’ with ‘non-aggressive’ and not necessarily ‘non-military’).[3] For more information on how these treaties work and the history behind them, listen to this podcast on Peace in Space by Harris Siderfin and Otilia Meden. Even today, space exploration remains the main point of diplomatic collaboration between the US and Russia.

    The finishing touches are put on the lunar plaque. Image credits: NASA <https://images.nasa.gov/details/6900847>

    What is striking about these treaties, and more specifically the Apollo 11 plaque and silicon disk, is that, given the chance to represent ourselves to potential extra-terrestrial life and future humans that visit the moon, we opted for messages of peace. These messages are not only an opening of communication in first contact, but also a reflection of how we want to present ourselves. The debates around ‘METI’ (Messaging Extra-terrestrial Intelligence) fall into two camps: do we want to project a defensive belligerence or communicate peace?[4] So far, missions into outer space have opted for peace: Voyager 1 took with it a recording of peaceful greetings in different languages, and NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover, Europa Clipper, and Artemis missions took and are taking with them names of people on flash drives and microscopic discs out into space. Such messages also show a democratisation of our self-representation in space output.

    The Apollo 11 mission itself became a symbol of unity across the world. The landing was watched by over 650 million viewers across the globe,[5] with both the viewership and the silicon disk messages representing peace-making through commonality via a mutual investment in human achievement. Space philosopher Frank White coined the term ‘the overview effect’ to describe this transcendence felt by astronomers looking back at Earth from space,[6] and years after the Apollo missions, as the Voyager mission projected back to us our own self-image as a pale blue dot, Carl Sagan reflected:

    ‘…that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. […] There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.’[7]

    Peace on the Moon, and in outer space more generally, is less about intergalactic harmony and more about peace on Earth. In his message on the Apollo 11 silicone disk, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the then Prime Minister of Canada, put it well:

    ‘Man has reached out and touched the tranquil moon. May that high accomplishment allow man to rediscover the Earth and find peace there.’[8]

    What do you think?

    • How can peace and peacemaking in space help us visualise peace and peace-making on Earth?
    • Do you think that in future communications with extra-terrestrial beings, we should opt for peace of defensive belligerence?
    • How would you communicate a peaceful message to someone in a different language, or even in a non-verbal way?
    • How would you communicate a peaceful message to an alien?

    If you want to read more…

    Anna Pilgrim, May 2024


    [1] Heidi Blake, ‘Apollo 11 Moon landing: messages of peace from world leaders left on Moon’, Telegraph, (18 July 2009), <https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/5844543/Apollo-11-Moon-landing-messages-of-peace-from-world-leaders-left-on-Moon.html> [accessed 4.3.24]

    [2] Blake, ‘Apollo 11 Moon landing:’

    [3] Bin Cheng, ‘Definitional Issues in Space Law: the ‘Peaceful Use’ of Outer Space, including the Moon and other Celestial Bodies’, Studies in International Space Law, (Oxford, 1997).

    [4] Carlos Santana, ‘We Come in Peace? A Rational Approach to METI’, Space Policy, Vol. 57, (2021),

    [5] ‘From The Moon To Your Living Room: The Apollo 11 Broadcast’, Science + Media Museum, <https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/moon-to-living-room-apollo-11-broadcast> [accessed 10.3.24]

    [6] Frank White, ‘The Overview Effect and Creative Performance in Extreme Human Environments’, Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 12, (2021)

    [7] Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, (New York, 1994).

    [8] Blake, ‘Apollo 11 Moon landing:’

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