Artemis’s Sacred Satellite.

Hubris: Looking in wonder at the Moon is one thing, dumping yet more human junk in the lunar dust is another. Inexorably, the vast fossil-fuelled civilisation that has made the space exploration programme possible, is heading for the edge. The human species may, briefly, escape the grip of its planet’s gravity, but only at the cost of jeopardising its long-term survival.

NASA’S GIANT ROCKET may have finally lifted-off the launch-pad by the time you read these words. Or, it could be inching its way back to the outsize shed it came from – for repairs. I hope it’s the latter. Artemis is a jealous goddess: we should leave her moon alone.

I didn’t always feel that way. There was a time, long before I started shaving, when I was a huge fan of the Apollo programme and looked forward to the day when an American astronaut would execute – as the man destined to make it said – “one giant leap for Mankind”.

Thanks to a remarkable birthday gift, I also became a great fan of the huge Saturn V rocket. My excellent scale model could even be launched. Powered by the muscles of older family members, a complicated vertical catapult sent the “rocket” soaring skyward, from whence it drifted back to earth under plastic parachutes that popped, miraculously, out of the model’s hull.

The booklet which came with the toy was full of fun facts about the rocket Wernher von Braun had dreamed of building since the 1920s. I can still recall the precise height of the Saturn V – 363 ft.

But that was then, the 1960s, when the ambitions and ingenuity of human-beings was thought to be limitless. Star Trek creator, Gene Roddenberry’s boast to “boldly go where no man has gone before”, like his vision of a single, peaceful, bounteous, female-affirming, racially-integrated planetary society, seemed entirely feasible. The exploration of Space was only just beginning. “Warp Factor 5, Mr Sulu.”

It was not to be. Jack “ we choose to go to the Moon, and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard” Kennedy turned into Lyndon Johnson, who became Richard Nixon, who brought the Apollo Programme to an end. The Americans had set out to beat the Russians to the Moon, and they had done it. NASA’s ambitions, and its budget, were scaled back. Man had taken one small step towards the infinite – and that was deemed to be enough.

Twenty years later, REM’s young musicians were singing “if you believed they put a man on the moon”. The generations that followed the Baby Boomers struggled to see the purpose of it all. So many billions of dollars spent, so many scientists and engineers working their butts off, and for what? Velcro, non-stick frying pans, and a heap of junk littering the moon’s pristine surface – forever?

They had a point.

But there is still a point – isn’t there – in trying to see that little bit further? In trying to find out what had happened to our nearest planetary neighbours. (Seems that Venus and Mars were once a lot like Earth – which is a bit of a worry!) Some point, too, in capturing the light of a universe that was still young. When the stars were flickering on like a city’s lights at sunset. There is still so much to see out there.

But looking in wonder at the birth of time is one thing, dumping yet more human junk in the lunar dust is another. Even as Gene Roddenberry was dreaming, his planet was steadily warming. Inexorably, the vast fossil-fuelled civilisation that had made the Apollo Programme possible, was headed for the edge. The human species had, briefly, escaped the grip of its planet’s gravity, but only at the cost of jeopardising its long-term survival.

The Mother Ship

That wondrous photograph, snapped by the early Apollo astronauts, of the earth rising above the moon’s horizon, told humankind everything it needed to know. This is the only mother ship you have. This is the only mother ship you need. Heal it before you think of leaving her again. But not enough of us received the message, and now: “Houston, we have a problem.”

Not that Houston’s listening. Houston has the “Artemis Programme” – may already have hurled a rocket bigger than the Saturn V towards Apollo’s sister’s sacred satellite. A risky exercise. If the Ancient Greeks are to be believed, the moon goddess is a dangerous deity.

The hunter, Actaeon, accompanied by his hounds, happened upon the naked Artemis as she was bathing. Furious, the goddess transformed Actaeon into a stag and his own dogs tore him to pieces.

Artemis’s Revenge: Actaeon devoured by his own hounds.

Sometimes it’s as well to leave heavenly bodies in peace.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 2 September 2022.