So, we’ve gone around the moon. That’s nice. Sorry to be less than enthusiastic, but we had six crewed landings on it between 1969 and 1972. Are we supposed to now consider this latest flyby, more than 50 years later, as progress in our journeys to space?
Perhaps part of my jaded view comes from being an avid “Star Trek” watcher – the original one. The list of future inventions the show predicted is amazing in accuracy. Flip phones, voice-activated AI, video conferencing, tablets and wearable tech are just a few. I admit we haven’t quite mastered the “Beam me up, Scotty” human teleportation yet. However, it is possible to move information by quantum teleportation, also known as quantum entanglement.
I am all for space exploration and, in particular, finding other life forms in the universe. But so far, our accomplishments seem to consist of Tang, cool rocket rides and some amazing pictures. OK, I admit that statement is a bit harsh, but I don’t think Mr. Spock would be pleased with our progress either.
The crew seemed great. They were appropriately well prepared and understandably excited and enthusiastic about their mission. NASA Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Canadian Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen and Mission Specialist Christina Koch oversaw an almost flawless mission. They did have an early issue with the onboard toilet, but Koch, an electrical engineer and the first woman assigned to a lunar mission, quickly repaired it. She was repaid by her male colleagues, no doubt, leaving the toilet seat up three-fourths of the time.
The most dangerous part of the mission was the reentry and return to Earth. G-forces are often mentioned. OK, I hear ya, but many roller coasters give us similar G-forces, and I wasn’t scared riding them. Well, maybe a little bit.
Seriously, though, one of the achievements was the heat shield’s successful endurance of temperatures of about 2,800 degrees centigrade during its 25,000-mph reentry. There were concerns about heat shield damage from a previous flight. I just spent a month in Yuma, Arizona, where the all-time hottest temperature for the month of March in America was set at 111 degrees. We came home two days early. Our heat shields did not hold up.
All this talk about heat reminds me of the old dad joke about a proposed space flight to the sun. Skeptics said, “You’ll burn up!” The response: “No problem, we’ll go at night.”
There is another mythical story about the U.S. spending millions to create a pen that would write in zero gravity, while the Russians used a pencil. OK, not entirely accurate, but it does make for a good story. And what’s this about us not having seen the other side of the moon? I’m not buying this “tidally locked” explanation. The moon spins; Earth spins. We’d have to see it sometime.
The moon has a plentiful supply of helium-3, which offers the potential for clean, highly efficient nuclear fusion energy, cooling for quantum computing and high-squeaky-sounding voices. The mining of helium-3 and other ideas to create a lunar economy seem to be an even more distant reality than the state of our space program. Just the price of space insurance alone would be astronomical. (Sorry, as you know, I couldn’t resist.)
And how about the ethics of moving on to destroying our moon? We have enough destruction work left to do here on Earth. Let’s finish one task before moving on to another.
Nice flight, however, I learned from my mom long ago, at a very early age, that rather than go around it, the cow jumped over the moon.
Jim Cross is a retired Fort Lewis College professor and basketball coach living in Durango. Reach him at cross_j@fortlewis.edu.
