I think I’d heard the word magnificent. I can’t say that that just popped into my mind. It’s in the radio transmissions from Neil. I probably said beautiful, beautiful — and then he said magnificent, isn’t it? And that’s when maybe I responded with magnificent desolation. Now, however that came about, the meaning that was really behind that without being put into words at the time was humanity’s progress to reach a point where we leave the earth and we go to that object in the sky called the moon and we walk around on it.
I mean, that’s a tribute to the progress, to the achievements of the human race, and it’s so magnificent that we were a part of that, But looking out at the lifelessness of the scenery doing the magnificence of being there it was at such a lifeless, desolate place that I couldn’t imagine any place more typical of desolation with just gray, shades of gray and a black sky and a brilliant sun and no atmosphere. And these things are in your head and radiation from the sun. It’s just not a very hospitable place. And, the most important — it hasn’t changed in hundreds of thousands of years. What we’re looking at just a little bit more dust has accumulated. But it’s been that same way for such a long time.
