July 20th marked the moon-landing and we went back to 1969 and a time of revolutions, free love, rock and roll and psychedelic idealism to re-live the moon mania. Today, all the facts of the moon sound terribly pedestrian but we cannot allow the silver satellite to lose its lustre and so, Towheed Feroze dips in moon madness and writes
July 20 was the date when back in 1969 the world looked on in awe as Neil Armstrong took one step for man and one giant step for mankind. Interestingly, far before that we let our imagination go wild in the arena of sci-fi fiction with plots ranging from super sharp alien cultures and extra terrestrials colonising the earth to spaceships from Earth discovering baffling civilisations in far away stars and planets. But, in reality, if we let keep the imagination under check for a while, we see that we have just made it to the moon. Mars is opening up slowly and tantalisingly and that keeps the mystique alive along with hopes of finding some evidence that someday, some sort of living being inhabited it. On the other hand we have the moon - earth's satellite that we have conquered. Perhaps, conquer is an overstatement since according to predictions of many science fiction writers we have not colonised it as yet, but let's say that moon is no more a mystery as it used to be fifty years ago.
Back then, with the late sixties celluloid world going gaga over the impact of the TV series Star Trek, an entire pop culture grew around speculations about alien beings out there and since the moon was the closest to us, it became a staple in a lot of fiction. But the fascination with the moon did not start then. In fact, the obsession with the satellite goes back to thousands of years when myth mixed with superstition and the moon was the centre of haunting tales - some good, some bad and all of them laced with a sense of dark and macabre attraction.
But 1969 changed all that and a lot of the mystery surrounding Earth's satellite became clear when man landed on the lunar surface. The facts were as barren as the place itself: no oxygen, no water, no wind and definitely no aliens. The balloon of anticipation, steadfastly inflated by centuries of gossip and apocryphal tales, was punctured. Still, we loved it! That is because the moon surface looked like a place that has been cleaned spotlessly with a duster. As one of the astronauts later said: "it looked like a place refreshed by rain." Maybe someone cleaned it before Apollo 11 landed!
But the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon was far more than just a dream come true. Set against a tumultuous age marked by the Vietnam War, nerve battles between Communism and Capitalism, rise of a global student voice in support of human rights, free love, rock and roll and flower power, it was the ultimate landmark moment of an age that is still regarded as the period when the world underwent mind boggling changes. It was the sixties!
And it was also a time when society was not willing to believe everything that the government told them. Hence the conspiracy theories about the moon landing. When the world celebrated and the USA gloated for having won the space race against the Soviets, many theories questioning the veracity of the landing began to appear. The common line was that the USA did not land on the moon but carefully orchestrated the whole event to have an upper hand over the USSR and provide a distraction from the Vietnam War that was fuelling a global anti American sentiment. Theorists also suggested that in choreographing this massive scam, the USA administration hired Stanley Kubrick, the filmmaker. A few years later, a film titled Capricorn 1 was audacious enough to use this theory and, understandably, that added to the belief that the moon landing was actually an elaborate hoax.
Be that as it may, one has to admit that had it not been for all these theories, the landing and the subsequent banal findings would have summarily killed all the suspense surrounding the moon. Who knows, maybe the decision to start the conspiracy ideas rolling was also part of the publicity stunt. Well, there I go again looking for something spice in a matter that now appears flat and lucid. Or does it?
Moon landing was our first step in reaching out into the unbelievably massive world above us and though it did not reveal anything spectacular, we like to believe that, as a first step, it was a thrill and, in the future, there will be a planet which will show some sign of life.
But, even without that expectation, the early Eighties speculation of having moon stations with people in them revived the lunar thrill because with the cold war still raging, the image we had was that of large laser guns belonging to both super powers planted on the moon to be used for space fights. That was the age of Star Wars and we had the right to let our imagination go berserk. However, in 2010, all that nervous excitement of the past seems frivolous and the moon is still there - uninhabited and barren as ever.
However, that does not stop the gossip machine and every now and then we hear of new findings, though now our reactions to them are more reserved. We are resigned to the fact that moon will not yield any more suspense and so, we now look to Mars, the red planet, and desperately hope that it will satisfy our desire to be shocked. We have had years of science fiction and in that world we have battled monsters, befriended magnanimous aliens, occupied far away stars, dealt with alien invasion and even made love to them but against all that, in reality, we have a few rocks, some sand and pages and pages of mind-numbing data. Come one, we need some thrill here!
As for the moon, it has gone silent. Well, maybe not yet. Sometimes we do like to look up and think that once, long ago, this satellite was used as a base for some alien culture and once the planet became barren, it was deserted. Sounds incredibly exciting but totally implausible! However, we want to think and imagine. After all, if we let the moon be just another rocky place, we will be stealing away centuries of glamour from it and that would not be fair. And, we would not be promising the moon and its mystery to our loved ones either. You offer thrill to your love, not a place with stones and hills!
So, as we remember Apollo 11's 1969 landing, we raise a glass to the moon, keep a side in our heart for all those conspiracy theories and wink at the satellite on a silent haunting night. Now, could it be possible that the Mayan civilisation knew something about the moon that they decided to keep secret………
comments: towheedf@yahoo.co.uk