Displaying items by tag: moon landing

India's space agency is the first to walk on the moon's south pole. Chandrayaan-3's rover walk means that India has joined America, the former Soviet Union and China’s elite club. The rover is roaming the rocks and craters at 1 cm per second, gathering data and images to send to earth for analysis. It landed on the start of a lunar day, which equals a little over four earth weeks. The lander and rover will use these days of sunlight to charge their batteries. A major goal is to hunt for water. The craters, permanently in shadow, hold ice which could support human habitation on the Moon in future. It could also be used for supplying propellant for spacecraft headed to Mars and other distant destinations. Narendra Modi said India wants to open its space sector to foreign investment as it targets a five-fold increase in its share of the global launch market within the next decade.

We recently celebrated fifty years since men landed on the moon. But NASA did not share one celebration on that day. Once the lunar module landed in the Sea of Tranquillity, Buzz Aldrin radioed Earth to say they wanted a moment’s reflection on what had just happened. Then he turned off the radio. Aldrin, who was a church elder, opened containers of bread and wine that he had brought with him and read John 15:5. In the 1/6th gravity of the moon the wine curled slowly and gracefully up the side of the cup: the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the first food eaten there, were communion elements. A few years earlier three Catholic astronauts took Holy Communion on board the Endeavour, and Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon said the Jewish Shabbat Kiddush prayer while in space.