Monday, July 20, 2009
Moon 40
I admit it, I am wallowing in lunar nostalgia, looking back 40 years to a time I don't even remember, when going to the Moon was a great thing to do because it was hard, because it was risky and daring and nobody had done it before. And, of course, because of the Cold War and the drive to beat the Russians to something, after they'd put the first satellite, the first man and the first woman into orbit.
It's salutary to remember how much greater were the technological obstacles faced by the Apollo missions in the 1960s. Neil Armstrong's childhood friend, invited to watch the launch of Apollo 11, filmed it on his super 8 cine camera. The limited computing power of the Lunar Landing Module nearly scuppered the mission. But still they tried, and they succeeded.
So I love the whole daring enterprise of sending human beings so far beyond the rest of us that the whole world became a small disc in their sky. But I do also have a small feeling of unease that we're looking back when we should be looking forward. The future, as seen from the sixties, is shiny and simple and retro. But it's as long ago now as 1929 was then. What are the new goals that can unite and inspire us in the twenty-first century? In fact, I'm organising a session at this year's Battle of Ideas festival on this very subject.
After space exploration going out of fashion for so long, it's great to see NASA and even the UK government getting serious about sending human beings beyond our home planet again. As the great visionary Konstantin Tsiolkowsky said in 1911, "Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot live in the cradle forever".
It's salutary to remember how much greater were the technological obstacles faced by the Apollo missions in the 1960s. Neil Armstrong's childhood friend, invited to watch the launch of Apollo 11, filmed it on his super 8 cine camera. The limited computing power of the Lunar Landing Module nearly scuppered the mission. But still they tried, and they succeeded.
So I love the whole daring enterprise of sending human beings so far beyond the rest of us that the whole world became a small disc in their sky. But I do also have a small feeling of unease that we're looking back when we should be looking forward. The future, as seen from the sixties, is shiny and simple and retro. But it's as long ago now as 1929 was then. What are the new goals that can unite and inspire us in the twenty-first century? In fact, I'm organising a session at this year's Battle of Ideas festival on this very subject.
After space exploration going out of fashion for so long, it's great to see NASA and even the UK government getting serious about sending human beings beyond our home planet again. As the great visionary Konstantin Tsiolkowsky said in 1911, "Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot live in the cradle forever".
