FLY ME TO THE MOON ....AT 50!!!

O Ευρωπαϊκός Διαστημικός Οργανισμός γιορτάζει #Apollo50th με τη σειρά
 '#Europeans in Apollo' - ‘Ευρωπαίοι στο #Apollo‬’

‪#Apollo50 #Apollo50th #ForwardToTheMoon #Apollo #Moonlandings‬

50 χρόνια μετά οι διαστημικοί οργανισμοί της Γης ετοιμάζονται να επιστρέψουν 
στη Σελήνη με πιο βιώσιμο τρόπο σε διαφορετική περιοχή προσγείωσης από 
τις αποστολές #Apollo πριν από 50 χρόνια: τη λεκάνη του νότιου πόλου #Aitken.
Οι πέντε αποστολές του #Apollo προσγειώθηκαν σε περιοχές που αντιστοιχούν 
χοντρικά στα πιο σκοτεινά σημεία που είναι ορατά στη Σελήνη. 
Τα δείγματα που οι αστροναύτες έφεραν πίσω στη Γη εξακολουθούν να διερευνώνται 
και να αναλύονται από ερευνητές σε όλο τον κόσμο και νέες ανακαλύψεις γίνονται 
καθώς οι εργαστηριακές τεχνικές βελτιώνονται, προωθώντας την κατανόηση του 
φυσικού μας δορυφόρου, ενώ προκύπτουν συνεχώς νέα ερωτήματα, 
όπως γίνεται με κάθε δυνατή επιστημονική έρευνα.

Ευρωπαϊκή Επιτροπή στην Ελλάδα

I clearly still remember being woken up by my father in the middle of the night in Athens and then marched on into the living room to sit in front of a TV set which was surprisingly broadcasting at such a late hour. -In those days greek tv channels (there were actually only two then) would switch off around midnight.

Usually children are sent to bed early and not encouraged to sit up late at night to watch television. But this was no ordinary night. In fact, ever since, it has been registered as the most extraordinary night in the history of mankind, well, at least since the Cro-magnon tribes, about 40,000 years ago, discovered how to light up and preserve fire, thus changing the course of human destiny forever.

“Watch this program for you’ll remember it for the rest of your life,” my dear father said to me. An episode of the Lucy Show, the sitcom comedy with television’s greatest star Lucille Ball was ongoing. It was followed by some Walt Disney cartoon to my great delight.

All of a sudden, Disney’s Goofy disappeared from the screen, and was replaced by the slightly blurred image of a small spaceship that appeared to be standing on what seemed to be the surface of another planet. Seconds later a trap door opened and an astronaut (Neil Armstrong) in full science fiction uniform came out and began descending a ladder. As he reached the last rung closest to the surface he stopped, as if hesitating to take that ultimate step that would make him land on another planet.
As the world held its breath, the man lowered his leg brushing the surface of the moon only to pull it right up again. Then, in a more confident manner, he touched down with both feet on the planet and took his first steps into the universe.

Around me, in the living room, my entire family and some of their close friends were watching the TV set transfixed. My maternal grandfather’s face was radiating with a smile. Everyone seemed to be beaming with joy. Our two maids, standing at the far end of the living room, were making the sign of the cross in utter disbelief of what they were actually witnessing.

From the wide-open verandah double doors there were sounds of people cheering. So were hundreds of thousands of people in major squares all around the globe, where huge television screens had been mounted for crowds to witness this historical event.

At the same time, my paternal grandfather, in his New York apartment, was trying to grasp the dramatic events as they evolved on the screen of his huge tv by taking a snapshot from his sofa with a Kodak Instamatic camera.

That was about it. In a few seconds the Universe had become our back yard and we could all go back to our daily lives. Funny how great changes are taking so little time to become engrained to popular narrative. Yet, popular culture could never be the same after such a dramatic walk.
The moon had lost its unattainability and had been turned from a poetical remote realm into a destination. In a few second, one of the greatest odes to our satellite, Frank Sinatra’s “Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars” became invested with another, far more literal, meaning. In fashion, Courreges and Paco Rabane began leaving Earth behind them altogether. And the warlock of Pop Culture, Andy Warhol, would immortalize the walk in his art.

No other event can come close in magnitude to those few steps of July 20th 1969 when Neil Armstrong walked into the threshold of infinity. Unless of course we manage to discover the Fountain of Youth or to unlock Time Travel. But the chances of experiencing such wonders in our lifetime will are very slim indeed.

A great deal has been said about that day; volumes have been written. Even so, no matter how much ink has been or will be spilled about this subject, it will never suffice to accurately express the feeling of ecstasy that overtook us all, living witnesses, the world over, at that specific moment on the timeline of humanity. July 20th 1969, is the one instance when human beings felt collectively proud of belonging to the human race.

50 years on, this wonderful feeling still persists hidden in the depths of the hearts of those who were lucky enough to have experienced it. Occasionally it pops up to surface reminding us how accurate William Shakespeare was in defining us in these words: ‘What a piece of work is man,How noble in reason, How infinite in qualities...’

50 years on, we still marvel lookin back at that “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”, the one Neil Armstrong took for us all, bringing out the best in us.