Over The Moon

Before human beings stepped foot on the moon, it was full of potential. Up until then, all we knew about the moon was how it affected the earth. But what we didn’t know really enticed us. Was there life on this giant, glowing orb? Could it be habitable for the people of earth? There was excitement in the unknown. So we did as any enamoured lover does: we became fixated. We tracked lunar phases as the days of the month ticked by, we watched the ocean’s tides rise and fall, and we waited with bated breath until, in 1961, the United States president John F. Kennedy announced that he wanted to land people on the moon.

The world lost its collective mind.

For the next eight years, despite the Kennedy assassination and NASA’s underwhelming photographs of the moon’s surface, our attention never waned. We hadn’t actually been there yet; the facts weren’t tangible.

Finally, On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped on the moon. The world became even more engrossed, and we started burning the candle at both ends. In the next three years, NASA landed six manned missions on the moon, returning an abundance of scientific data and 400 kilograms of lunar samples (not to mention the numerous unmanned missions still collecting lunar photography). Anything moon-related—information, news, photos— we devoured.

So why did we soon fall out of love?

On April 10, 2017, Wendy’s tweeted, “Tell us the fourth person to walk on the Moon without Googling it.” Nobody knew. This did nothing but spark a petty, if funny, tweet battle with Hardee’s.

Why does no one remember Alan Bean, the fourth person to walk on the moon? (Yes, I had to Google it.) Or Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, David Scott, or James Irwin? After the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, NASA stopped sending people to the moon altogether—that was only three years after the initial landing. And now, 40-some-odd years later, we basically don’t even care.

Maybe it’s simply that we learned all we could about it. We know the surface of the moon is made up of rock, dead volcanoes, impact craters, and lava flows. There is no atmosphere, wind, or weather, and it’s unable to support life of any kind. Maybe people were disappointed that the moon was essentially just a giant rock. Maybe taking away the mystery, the chase, killed the infatuation.

Compare this with our sustaining fascination with Mars. Though Venus is actually closer in distance to Earth, Mars as the next target for our attention makes sense. Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system, being so close to the sun, so any probe that NASA has sent to Venus has been destroyed in minutes. Mars, however, is still close enough to be reachable by NASA’s spacecrafts, and even has likenesses to Earth such as ice caps, clouds, canyons, and seasonable weather patterns.

NASA had unmanned spacecrafts and rovers active on Mars from 1964 to today, with the next rover due to be sent in 2020. But no people have been sent, and that’s partly because of distance. It takes about three days to travel to the moon and eight months to travel to Mars. Among a variety of other factors including money, technology, and world powers, ultimately it comes down to risk. NASA is continuously learning more about Mars, the hazards of its environment, its atmosphere, and how to build the technology to adapt and survive, but there’s still so much we don’t know. Every time NASA’s scientists and engineers come close to understanding something about Mars, new research and discoveries force them to revise and re-theorize.

So, despite Earth’s familiarity with Mars, there is still mystery and, perhaps more importantly, possibility. Elon Musk, for example, believes that humans could be living on Mars by 2060 (I mean, he also believes we’re living in the Matrix, but that’s another story). NASA is planning on landing humans on Mars by the 2030s. Taking these future plans into account alongside the nonexistent ones with the moon, there is a potential of over 65 years of fascination with Mars compared to the moon’s decade. The dreams we once had for the moon dissipated after we actually landed on it, but they are still possible for Mars. Will the appeal end once we finally get there? Once we achieve these goals, is it possible that Mars will go the way of the moon?

Perhaps loving something too much and too fast means we run the risk of morphing the initial feelings into disinterest, or burning them out completely. On the other hand, there is also the argument that we’re not over the moon (and of course, some religions, including Judaism and Islam, follow the lunar calendar). There are writers who believe that the moon is making a comeback, at least in literary circles. They say it’s moving beyond the romantic cliché it got stuck with during our initial enthusiasm, and is now being reclaimed as profound.

I hope this is true. Every year, the moon drifts over an inch away from earth. Even though it would take billions of years to affect our planet, it’s a sad thought. With our sights set further into the solar system, we’re taking our moon for granted. But it is no stranger to hardship, and has the perfectly embedded imprints of asteroid assaults and astronaut boots to prove it. The moon is probably taking the earth’s ghosting in stride. After all, we need it more than it needs us.

words by jessica johns art by aimÉe henny brown