The Moon
The Moon
I am one of those people that grew up mesmerized by the space program. Skipping school to watch on TV as John Glenn orbited the earth is an early memory, but this was followed by the whole Apollo program, which was supposed to kick off on my birthday in 1967; the capsule fire in Apollo 1 and the deaths of the astronauts altered that schedule but was still impactful – we even named our three pet turtles Virgil, Edward and Roger.
The next year, Dad bought me a telescope kit from Edmunds Scientific for my 13th birthday, a very nice 4¼” Newtonian that we assembled together and that I still have and use today! Of course, that was followed the year after by the Apollo 11 moon mission, which I can recall vividly, as we watched on our small black and white TV set at our summer home in Deerfield.
As a teacher I was honoured to take part in a project that had my class at Lockeport High able to communicate by Internet text to the astronauts onboard the space shuttle as the crew far above us worked the Canada Arm. I still have the Teacher in Space and Mission patches that NASA sent me as a thank you afterward. In retirement as I got back to my photography artwork, I was again honoured by NASA as they chose to use 3 of my images in the Earth Image series for explaining geographical concepts.
While in Florida this winter, I got to tour NASA at Cape Canaveral with Marsha, Josh and Theo, and a highlight was that we got a quick peek at the Artemis rocket which at that point was tucked inside the Vehicle Assembly Building awaiting the transport to the launch pad at 39-B and then on to the mission that ends today. That mission, named Artemis ll, has been mind bending for those of us following it – the images of the moon, the earth and space are truly incredible as NASA tests the rocket system that will eventually take us back to landing on the moon and creating a base there.
Exciting times, and so interesting to be able to witness the ongoing science that is space exploration!
