From: LARRY KLAES (ljk4_at_msn.com)
Date: Wed Oct 17 2007 - 11:27:31 PDT
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18925785&BRD=1395&PAG=461&dept_id=546876&rfi=6
Dark Side of the Moon
By Larry Klaes
10/17/2007
After a decades-long drought, humanity's interest is turning towards its
nearest celestial neighbor again, the Moon. On the 50th anniversary of the
launch of Sputnik 1, the first satellite sent into Earth orbit, Japan will
place its own satellite into lunar orbit for the most detailed study of our
natural satellite ever. Other nations such as China, India, Russia, and the
United States have their own robot explorers ready to follow to the Moon in
the next few years. Most of these nations also intend to place human beings
on the lunar surface for extensive stays in the coming decades.
All of these current and planned lunar missions, both robotic and manned,
have Project Apollo to thank for leading the way to the Moon. In the 1960s,
the United States and the Soviet Union competed with each other to see who
could place the first person on the lunar surface. The US rose to the
challenge and ultimately won that contest, with 24 astronauts circling the
Moon and 12 of them actually walking on its dusty, ancient surface from 1968
through 1972.
This period is a distant memory or a relic of history for most people today.
But a documentary on the subject titled In the Shadow of the Moon brings to
new life that incredible time when human beings actually left our planet
Earth and stepped upon another world. Making its Ithaca premiere this month
at Cinemapolis, Shadow depicts the actual missions with seldom seen film
footage. The documentary also shows the reactions from the mass of humanity
back on Earth (it was estimated that one billion people watched the first
Moon landing by Apollo 11 in July of 1969, one quarter of the entire
population at that time) and the intimate thoughts of most of the men who
walked on the Moon.
Project Apollo got off to a bad start before the first manned mission even
flew. On January 27, 1967, the three astronauts of Apollo 1 were killed when
the interior of their spacecraft caught fire during a test on the ground at
Cape Kennedy in Florida.
Corrections to make the Apollo spacecraft safer and better delayed the first
actual manned launch by a year and a half. When Apollo did get back on
track, little time was wasted in achieving its stated goal. Christmas of
1968 saw the first human beings orbiting the Moon aboard Apollo 8; the first
successful landing on the lunar surface came just seven months later. Five
more missions placed 12 astronauts in all upon the Moon, with Apollo 13 in
1970 being a notable exception.
When the last two astronauts left the Moon in December of 1972, no one
followed them. Plans to establish longer missions and eventually lunar bases
were put off into the indefinite future. NASA decided to focus its energy
and resources on the space shuttle and space station, which have been mixed
bags in terms of conducting space research and grabbing the public's
attention regarding the exploration of the wider universe.
In the Shadow of the Moon spends a good deal of time displaying the thoughts
and feelings of the exclusively small club of men who walked on the lunar
regolith thanks to Apollo. There is a perception that these astronauts, many
of whom were military test pilots, were reticent to talk about their
emotions from their space adventures.
The other perception is that the very event itself overwhelmed and
overshadowed their voices and images, but neither is really the case,
especially in the last decade or so. A number of books, film documentaries,
and motion pictures have come out in recent years highlighting the men who
made those journeys. Shadow is in one sense just the latest of these
historic retellings, but the film shows that the Apollo missions continue to
be of interest both to those presenting them and the public.
Shadow relays two main themes from the astronauts: One is their reactions to
the reality that never again in their lifetimes would they do anything that
would even come close to walking on the Moon. Some astronauts found their
lives derailed by this realization for decades after the event, while others
became more spiritual. Others were determined not to let their Apollo
mission put a stop to the rest of their lives and became successful in
alternate fields such as painting and even other space endeavors.
The other theme was the new perception of Earth as seen from far in space
and our place in the Cosmos. Witnessing our planet as a miniature blue and
white ball embedded in the deep blackness of space, where they could stand
on the Moon and cover the entire Earth - and everything they had ever known
and experienced - with their gloved thumb, gave many of the astronauts a
heightened realization of how small and precious our world really is. The
many photographs of Earth taken by the Apollo astronauts gave the vast
majority living on that planet a similar jolt in their perspectives.
When future humans do return to the Moon and eventually head outwards to
Mars and the rest of space, hopefully they will learn from and appreciate
the stories and experiences of the first men to venture beyond the confines
of Earth, the ones who made their journeys into the Universe possible.
©Ithaca Times 2007
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