Landing On The Goddess

What was that round disc of light in the night sky, that controlled the dark and light and regulated the fertility cycle? The Goddess, thought the ancient and the Chinese. The magicians use it to turn out magic, the poets to compose verses, and the novelist to imagine travels and love stories. And all these gave place to the historic non fiction on the 21st of July in 1969, when Neil Armstrong came down the steps of his vehicle, and became the first man that had walked on the Goddess. That was 44 years ago.

During these 44 years of space exploration, brilliant stories and technical advancement had been written and recorded, but nothing has touched the same impact of that Apollo 11, commanded by Armstrong in the personal or collective imagination. The live transmission of that moon walk of the astronaut broke all the previous viewing records in the history of television, including that of the Beatles's performance in the Ed Sullivan show. The conversation of Richard Nixon with Armstrong was the most historic call that had ever came out of the White House, according to the president himself, and he added: " I hope that's not going to be put on my bill."

The account is now precisely the problem. Space exploration is dangerous, human life is always too high a price to pay, and some terrible accidents contributed to put on the brake to the manned space mission. But economy was the main reason that in the last manned operation to the moon in 1972, the race with the Russians recent years, justified with conceit the political strategy of NASA that evaporated in 1974, when the then Soviet Union cancelled the programme of manned missions to the moon with which they had intended to surpass Armstrong.

But the NASA is already deep in the project of sending out 4 astronauts in 2018, and the scientists do not consider impossible establishing future colonies in the moon. Nor do they consider the cost prohibitive because it's based on local resources. The rocks in the moon, for instance, contains 40% oxygen.

Men will return to the moon and some day might even to stay. It's a matter of time ... and of money.

Tags:moonwalk,goddess

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