ROOM
90
Opinion
Michelle L.D. Hanlon
Founding Partner,
ABH Aerospace, LLC,
New York, USA
Roy Balleste
Founding Partner,
ABH Aerospace, LLC,
Florida, USA
ROOM
is an open forum for comment and opinion - and actively encourages
contributions. To promote debate, discussion and inspiration we regularly
publish commentaries and opinions by space leaders and those involved
directly or indirectly in aerospace and space exploration. Here, Michelle
Hanlon, co-founder and Roy Balleste, member of the Advisory Council of For
All Moonkind, Inc, suggest there should be a way of preserving relics left on
the Moon after the Apollo missions for the benefit of future generations.
B
uzz Aldrin described the surface of
Earth’s Moon as “magnificent
desolation”. On this surface, battered by
sharp and jagged lunar dust lie many
oddities, including a golden olive branch, two
medals and a mission patch honouring two
Soviet cosmonauts and three American
astronauts who advanced humankind’s quest to
explore space but perished before the first
Moon landing was achieved.
There is also a piece of silicon. A disc, just over
30 mm in diameter filled with photos of messages
from the leaders of 74 nations at the time. They are
congratulatory and optimistic. Some speak with
hope, some with respect of the great inventors
and thinkers, like Galileo Galilei who formed the
foundation upon which modern science was
developed. Many speak with pride, recognising the
world’s first humans to step on the lunar surface
- Neil Armstrong and Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin - as true
Imagine if
these first
off-world
footprints,
preserved
until now by
the vacuum of
space, were
erased?
A first off-world step,
imprinted in the jagged
lunar soil, photographed
on July 20, 1969 in the
region known as the Sea
of Tranquility.
Preserving
Apollo’s
lunar legacy
