While Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are frantically plotting ways to colonise the moon, it looks like the moon is busy colonising our pop culture. The internet exploded with moon memes and trivia on the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing on July 20, 1969. NASA streamed footage of the launch online. Images of Buzz Aldrin’s handwritten note quoting the scriptures which was taken to the moon was doing the rounds on social media. So was Neil Armstrong’s EKG from the moon.
Scientists at a recent conference speculated on what kind of giant leap mankind is going to take in the moon in future. “In 50 years, there will be more tourists on the moon, which would be just like a resort, with a backyard for grilling meat or whatever else,” said Anatoli Petrukovich, director, Space Research Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences.
India, too, had its moment under the moon when we launched Chandrayaan-2 on July 22. Once it lands on the moon on September 7, it will be looking for anything that seems interesting, like water, caves and minerals. And if we can’t find them on the moon, we are going to transfer our billion dreams to the capable shoulders of Akshay Kumar, who will be taking us to Mars in his upcoming science fiction thriller Mission Mangal, about the ISRO scientists behind the Mars Orbiter Mission.