He says it’s 56 years after they first landed men on it, when Armstrong and Aldrin went into “their bouncy little dance”, like happy puppies in the low gravity, as E.B. White said at the time.
Now the new NASA head honcho, Jared Isaacman, has sent a memo to his staff saying “the United States will never again give up the moon”. It seems the Americans are worried about the Chinese getting there to peg out a claim — to dig for gold, or sell oranges, or build a missile launcher.
After this lap of honour in April, NASA then plans to land people on it by 2028, hopefully beating the Chinese, who may have other ideas. There is talk of a permanent base, of nuclear reactors, of phases one, two and three. The plan is to build “a permanent moon base” with robotic helpers and astronauts visiting every six months. They want to turn it into a construction site with “habitats” and “infrastructure”.
There are also rockets by Mr Musk and rockets by Mr Bezos and a suggested “fly off” to see which billionaire gets there first. And NASA is skiting about a toilet on board called the Universal Waste Management System — a toilet that uses airflow to pull solid waste into containers — although I find a nice patch of grass more efficient myself.
So, half a century later, there is once again a race for the moon. A race. As if the moon were a pie cooling on the sill, and one nation or another must be first to slap a hand over it and say, “mine”. I once had a sprint in me if a large stick was thrown into the river with sufficient authority. But even then, I understood the difference between possession and admiration. You may chase a thing without imagining you own it.
The moon has been doing its job for a very long time without any help from NASA. It controls the tides. It lights the path home for things that travel by night. It gives lovers something to stand under when words run short. It drives wolves and dogs to our most sincere form of expression — that long, vowel-rich commentary we offer the sky when the feeling becomes too large for the body to contain.
Who is going to compensate us for all of that, if some government puts another flag on it and calls it won? E.B. White noticed the Americans’ first flag — stiff and awkward, pretending to wave in a wind that did not exist, and thought: what a small thing to do on such a grand occasion.
He suggested a limp white handkerchief would have been better — a symbol of the common cold, something shared by everyone on Earth, sooner or later.
I am not opposed to curiosity. Curiosity is why puppies survive, and why old dogs still get up to inspect a strange sound in the garage. But there is a difference between curiosity and ownership, between wonder and a press release.
If humans must go back, let them go back lightly, without the swagger of pioneers and the language of possession. Let them visit as guests. Clean up after yourselves. Don’t leave the moon cluttered with discarded ambition and corporate logos.
The moon was here before the first wolf lifted its head. It will be here long after the last rocket rusts. Woof!
