Happy Mooniversary!
Will we return to the Moon in 2020?
Happy Mooniversary! 40 years ago today, when I was just a wee tyke of 4-years, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins landed on the Moon. I’d like to say I remember watching it on TV, but my memories are probably confused with memories of later viewings. I do remember watching later missions, back when moonshots were kind of a regular thing. Ah, the good ol’ days.
For the next few years it looked like we really would stick to the original NASA agenda of moonshots, then moon bases then going to Mars. But no. The money dried up, and the focus shifted to Earth orbit missions.
NASA wants to go back to the Moon by 2020, and I for one am really excited about it. I’ll be 55, and my niece Rachel will be 20. I have this fantasy in my head of her being a scientist of some kind, based on the Science Center being her favorite day trip, but she’s only 8 now. Who knows what her interests will be when she’s 20 and in college? I just remember how fascinated she was by the space flight exhibit the last time we went, especially the hallway with the casts of various astronaut’s handprints on the wall. She was disappointed to find only 2 female hands there. Fortunately, there are actually quite a few females in space programs around the world, so if she looks for role models, she’ll find them. I, of course, will continue to encourage her interest in science.
Meanwhile, various nations and organizations have sent out their own unmanned probes to the Moon. Japan’s Kaguya probe, which recently smashed itself into the Moon, mapped the surface and peered beneath it. We even have an International Space Station now, though being a kid who grew up in the 60′s and 70′s, I can’t help but compare it and everything else about Earth’s current space endevours to the movie 2001: A Space Odessey, in which commercial space travel between the Earth and Moon was no more unusual than an airplane flight.
Being an American, I think of NASA’s efforts first, but it’s deeply inspiring to know that if my country drops the ball (as the sinking feeling in my stomach tells me it might), other nations will keep up their commitment to space exploration. I hope that gut feeling of mine is wrong, though.
So, happy Mooniversary! Here are some nifty websites to help you celebrate:
- We Choose the Moon (Flash heavy)
- Remembering Apollo 11 (The Big Picture, Boston Globe)
- Man on the Moon, Future and Past (The Big Picture, Boston Globe)
- Moon Retrospectives (a list of essays by 18 science fiction authors, remembering Apollo 11, from the blog Worlds in a Grain of Sand)
- Astronomer Phil Plait remembers the moonshots (he’s my age and tells a touching story connecting his father to the Apollo program)
- NASA’s Apollo 40th anniversary site
- ApolloPlus40 (Tweeting the Apollo 11 mission)
- Houston, We Erased the Apollo 11 Tapes (NPR story about how NASA lost the original tapes of the Moon landing, and how other sources pitched in to replace them. Seriously, of all the things to tape over…)
Cross posted on my other blog.
