Worst Case Scenario

I know they have to plan for the worst case scenario but this just seems cold to me. Just released is the speach that Nixon would have given if things went wrong during the Apollo 11 moon landing. I wonder how different a world this would be with such a high profile failure. Would they have suspended the program indefinately? Would there have been a future recovery mission? Did the Astronauts have the means aboard to take their own lives or would their deaths have been slow and painful? How would Micheal Collins have reacted from lunar orbit if Buzz and Neil were stranded?

"As America prepares to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first Moon landing, attention is set to focus on a little-known speech drafted in case of a much different outcome that historic day. While Neil Armstrong’s immortal lines “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” have entered history, 233 other words, written for a tragedy that everyone hoped would never happen, were consigned to an archive and forgotten until now.They are contained in a typed memo from President Richard Nixon’s speechwriter, Bill Safire, to White House chief of staff Harry Haldeman, dated July 18, 1969 – two days before the landing was due. Chillingly entitled “In the event of Moon disaster”, the stark message brings home just how dangerous the mission was. If Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin had been stranded on the Moon, unable to return to Michael Collins’s orbiting Apollo 11 command ship, Nixon would have called their widows then addressed a horror-struck nation. Fate has ordained that the men who went to the Moon to explore in peace will stay on the Moon to rest in peace,” he would have told the watching millions. These brave men know there is no hope for their recovery but they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice. These two men are laying down their lives in mankind’s most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding. They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown."