When I left the office around 6pm last night the moon was sitting up there in the sky looking down at me. I stopped to stare back. I took a picture but mine didn't turn out despite it being a "smart" phone with an 8 megapixel camera. So thank you internet for the assist on this one. This was pretty much how the moon looked and I was fascinated by it. I've always been fascinated by outer space, planets, moons, the stars and the possibilities that exist if we could ever go to infinity and beyond. But whether I'm staring at the moon on a random Tuesday or lying underneath the stars on KK at Afterglow I can't help but wonder. What's going on out there that we can't see? What does the Universe look like to the human eye? Are there other beings out there right now doing the exact same thing that I'm doing? Do they have similar thoughts about the Universe that is outside of their reach? Man hasn't been back to the moon in my lifetime with the last Apollo mission leaving the surface of the moon in December of 1972. And I doubt we will ever go back in my lifetime.
There were 12 men who walked on the moon and very soon we will sadly exist in a world where no currently living person has stood on another celestial body except for Earth. That's because some of those men are deceased and the remaining members of this exclusive club are old and getting older. Here are the Astronauts who have walked on the moon and their current age or date of death: 1. Neil Armstrong (82, died 8/25/12) 2. Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin (83) 3. Charles "Pete" Conrad (69, died 7/08/99) 4. Alan L. Bean (81) 5. Alan Shepard (74, died 7/21/98) 6. Edgar D. Mitchell (82) 7. David Randolph Scott (81) 8. James B. Irwin (61, died 8/8/91) 9. John Watts Young (82) 10. Charles M. Duke Jr. (77) 11. Harrison "Jack" Schmitt (77) 12. Eugene A. Cernan (79). That's it. Those are the only people who have stood on a non man-made object in space and looked back upon the home they left behind. What an amazing sight to behold. The pictures are really cool but I'm sure they don't do it justice. What a lonely feeling that must be. To feel so small, so insignificant. But at the same time you must feel so mighty like a god that has done the impossible. To exist in an environment where survival is not humanly possible. To conquer an insurmountable goal and boldly go where no man has gone before. Well, at least for Neil Armstrong. For Eugene Cernan it was more like boldly go where only 11 men have gone before but still it's pretty fucking sweet. Out of the billions and billions of people who have ever lived only 12 people can can claim to have set foot on the moon. That's such an insane concept for me to grasp. I can't imagine what that is like. And I doubt I ever will.
I wanted to be an Astronaut as a child. Shit, I think every child did. To fly outside of the Earth and into outer space. That's every kid's dream. I wanted to do something different, to be special. Be unique. Little did I know that I didn't have to go to the moon and back to be an individual. I'm not like anyone else. I know that because I haven't met anyone else like me. I haven't even met anyone who can put up with me. I don't know who or what I am but I do know that I don't fit in here. Maybe I do belong out in space or on another planet. Maybe I'm supposed to stay here and change the world. Perhaps I'm doomed to stay locked up in my own mind behind my self-imposed prison bars. I don't know if I will ever find the answer. But I'm not going to stop looking. Where would we be today if man had looked at the moon and quit right there knowing that he would never reach it? We'd be stuck on Earth still looking up. So I'm not going to quit. I'll keep trying to find someone who gets me. Even if I DO have to go to the moon and back.
- pookon -
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