NEXT July sees the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing, an occasion that is inspiring dramas, documentaries, art shows and festivals.
We need to make the most of it. The most garrulous of the moon鈥檚 visitors, Buzz Aldrin, is 88. The first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong, died in 2012, while Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, died last year. The threads that connect NASA to its lunar heyday are stretching and snapping, one by one.
The culture is changing, too. You only have to say the rocket names out loud. Saturn 5, still the biggest rocket ever used, drips high-octane adventure. Today鈥檚 launch vehicles 鈥� Dream Chaser and the like 鈥� sound more like smartphone apps.
Advertisement
First Man, in UK cinemas from 12 October, sends us boldly into the past with a biopic of Armstrong. It is directed, unlikely as this sounds, by Damien Chazelle, who wrote the musical La La Land. Mind you, he also wrote the聽screenplay for horror flick 10 Cloverfield Lane,聽so good luck trying to work out what鈥檚 going on in his head.
Ryan Gosling plays Armstrong, and his patented 1000-yard stare serves him well here. Watching Armstrong in interviews 鈥� and he gave precious few of them over the years 鈥� you had to wonder what it would take for him to express an emotion. Gosling, however, provides inner life by the spadeful and he does it, true to the man he is playing, almost entirely through intensity and silence. Without this, First Man would be the longest 138 minutes in history.
On the contrary:聽the film is a triumph, from its heart-in-mouth sound design, which sets all the hardware rattling and screaming, to Corey Stoll鈥檚 razor-sharp portrayal of Buzz Aldrin, to a script (by The West Wing writer Josh Singer) that gives Armstrong a compelling and entirely credible reason why he would want to keep his moon experiences to himself. Those who are calling it 鈥渦npatriotic鈥� must have seen a different movie 鈥� we might not see the actual planting of the US flag on the moon, but it is very prominently there.
Many more on-screen celebrations are planned for the coming months. Todd Douglas Miller鈥檚 documentary Apollo 11 is due for release next year, featuring never-before-seen, large-format film footage of the mission.
Sneaking in ahead of the film is Rory Kennedy鈥檚 new documentary for the Discovery channel, Above and Beyond: NASA鈥檚 journey to tomorrow. Taking inspiration from her uncle John F. Kennedy鈥檚 original vision for Apollo, it celebrates NASA鈥檚 culture of continuity. The agency has always looked back at Earth as avidly as it has stared past it. Your morning weather bulletin is NASA鈥檚 gift to the world 鈥� along with a mature and ever-improving understanding of our changing climate.
Likewise NASA鈥檚 willingness to work with others. Born out of the cold war, the agency has nevertheless always been open to international collaboration. Armstrong and Aldrin set experiment going on the lunar surface a whole .
Artefacts survive to remind us of Apollo鈥檚 glory days. London鈥檚 Science Museum houses the command module of Apollo 10, which took part in a dress-rehearsal flight around the moon in May 1969, just two months before the landing.
Apollo 11鈥檚 hardware, which sustained Armstrong, Aldrin and command module pilot Michael Collins on their roughly 1.5-million-kilometre journey, is enjoying a modest second odyssey of its own. The Columbia command module forms the centrepiece of : The Apollo 11 mission, an exhibition that has been touring the US since 2017. It lands at Seattle鈥檚 Museum of Flight in March in time for the anniversary. Its usual home, at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, is undergoing a major refit ready for its homecoming in 2021.
Apollo鈥檚 Mission Control Center in Houston, meanwhile, is being restored. By July next year, it will look exactly as it did when Armstrong took that first step on 20 July 1969. The flight control consoles are being refurbished, and wallpaper and carpet samples are being compared with recently discovered original samples. Trash cans, book cases, ashtrays and orange polyester seat cushions will all be present.
Elsewhere in the world, there is lots more to see. The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark has stolen a march on the competition with : From inner worlds to outer space. Open until 20 January, this is a celebration of the moon as it is seen in paintings, explored in virtual reality, and conjured in fantasy. In the UK there is a little longer to wait: festival over the anniversary weekend.
There are also missions to the moon planned for 2019. Although these uncrewed adventures can鈥檛 possibly upstage Apollo 11鈥檚 achievement, they do promise a new era of lunar exploration.
China is gearing up to land two robots: Chang鈥檈 4 is due to launch this December, with the goal of being the first lander on the moon鈥檚 far side. Chang鈥檈 5, scheduled for 2019, aims to bring about 2 kilograms of lunar regolith back to Earth.
India is planning to send an orbiter, lander and six-wheeled rover to the moon in January 2019. It is all part of India鈥檚 Chandrayaan-2 mission, which follows up on the successful Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter mission of 2008-2009.
There are more modest missions, too. The punchier contestants who entered the never-awarded Lunar X Prize are racing to launch their probes. Who will make moonfall first? My money is on Israel鈥檚 . While everyone else was crashing through the X Prize鈥檚 deadlines, trying to design wheeled vehicles for their rovers, SpaceIL was racing ahead with a vehicle that bounces about the lunar surface like a steel bunny.
The car manufacturer Audi, meanwhile, hopes Germany鈥檚 , will help land two of its wheeled rovers at the Apollo 17 landing site. Both of these projects need a decent delivery system, so there is a lot riding on SpaceX鈥檚 Falcon 9 launches from Cape Canaveral next year. SpaceX itself has announced it plans to send a paying customer to the moon, although no date has been given.
Perhaps the most telling anniversary-year project, though, will be the announcement of the results from . The moon鈥檚 next visitors may well have a home designed by Foster & Partners waiting for them, extruded by robots out of sintered regolith.
Alongside planned launches and public celebrations, certain private rites will be performed, too. I am planning to complete paper model of the iconic Arthur satellite dish in time for the anniversary.
Part of the Goonhilly Earth Satellite Station in Cornwall, Arthur brought the UK into the space age, carrying broadcasts of the moon landing from the US. My paper model is hardly less extraordinary 鈥� at least, that is what I am telling myself. It will track the location of the International Space Station using an embedded Raspberry Pi.
Each time the ISS passes overhead, a little red light will blink, reminding me of the night my mother carried me out of my bed and into the living room to see a man step onto the moon.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淎 lunar renaissance鈥�
