How Do I Get to the Moon
from the 02/15/05 “How Do I Get There?” show
I think everyone loves the moon. We hear of romance under the moonlight. I remember looking at the moon through a telescope when I was 6 years old. And historically, scientifically, I think everyone was transfixed to their televisions or radios when man first landed on the moon, there seemed to be a moment of awe, and inspiration, and amazement when there was that one small step for man, that one giant leap for mankind.
Scientists have deduced (in trying to guess how this planet got a moon, and how necessary it is for our weather patterns), that when the moon was first formed (one theory was that it was formed off Earth’s early collision with a rogue planet they call Orpheus), that the moon was first much, much closer to Earth when it was first formed than it is today, that it may have been only 14,000 miles away, and not at the current almost 240,000 mile distance it’s at now.
Astronomers now estimate that because of gravity’s change, the moon, every year, is a mile and a half farther away from the earth.
So if you remember the moon looking so big when you looked at the night sky when you were little, well, you may have been right.
Laurie Anderson, while studying with NASA as their Artist-in-Residence, learned from scientists at NASA during the cold war and during this country’s desire for nuclear testing, they considered setting off nuclear bombs on the dark side of the moon.
Because, you see, no one sees that side of the moon, and the radiation would be a safe distance from the Earth.
When I heard that, I thought: what would setting nuclear explosions on half of the moon do to it’s orbit? What would that do to it’s effect on our weather? And the earthquake that caused the Tsunami in Asia a few months ago slowed the rotation of the planet for a second - so would these explosions on the moon affect our rotation, or possibly our orbit?
And then I thought: why would anyone ever want to destroy a heavenly body we so need and don’t know enough about? Why would anyone want to destroy something that so many people are so infatuated with, that so many people revere?
Astronomy is like a forbidden love affair, something you can never reach, but something you can always hope for, something you can always admire from afar. Something whose constancy can give you hope, even if only when you’re standing outside in the night and looking up at its perennial beauty.
Copyright © 2005 Janet Kuypers.
All rights reserved. No material
may be reprinted without express permission.
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