Destination Moon - Once Again!

The poem that follows was inspired by the film that really opened the classic age of sci-fi films of the 1950s, George Pal’s somewhat eerily prescient, Destination Moon (1950). I also had in mind President Trump’s recent directive to NASA to have Americans return to the moon supposedly as a stepping stone to Mars and beyond. NASA has had its sights firmly set on missions to Mars and I wonder what impact this directive will have on NASA and the future course of space exploration. A lot will depend on finding the right answer to the questions posed in the last stanza of the poem I suppose. That may have been an important factor in the previous manned missions to the moon….finding the right answer.

Anyway, I close this year with my little poem and wish you A Happy New Year! Never stop wondering…..What If?

Once more unto the Moon, dear friends, once more!

We chose to go to the moon…..

In a George Pal sci-fi spectacular

Just a mere five years after The War,

When Truman was President of these here United States

And H-bomb production pushed up the stakes.

We chose to go to the moon….

In glorious Technicolor and mono sound

As Korea became yet another battleground,

While industry grew fatter with profit,

And a baby boom got set to sky-rocket.

We chose to go to the moon….

Committed and depicted up on the screen,

Beating them Commies so evil and mean!

While winds of a Cold War made us shake and shiver,

And we warmed up with sessions of duck and cover.

We chose to go to the moon….

Believing that we were in a race,

In which we had to set the pace,

To be first to put a man on the moon,

And get it done and done real soon.

We chose to go to the moon…..

With faith in our industry and enterprise

Asking: What’s the payoff? What’s our prize?

Knowing: the race is on and we’d better win it;

Control the moon and all others will submit!

We chose to go to the moon…..

Not yet ready to catch and match the fiction,

Of a Woody Woodpecker demonstration,

Filled with optimism and basic principles,

And all kinds of kids’ cute cartoon visuals.

We chose to go to the moon….

When Kennedy set out a nation’s challenge,

One that would not be easy to manage

And one that would be hard to achieve

But one in which all could believe.

We chose to go to the moon…..

Having once lost a race into space,

Now a new race began to help us save face

Where the goal was to win and claim first prize:

Global pre-eminence and all that it belies.

We chose to go to the moon…

And did we rush in headlong haste -

To land a man on the moon and be the first

To safely return him to earth! Ah, there’s the rub!

Dangers abounded while Time stood poised to drub.

We chose to go to the moon….

With men who had the right stuff,

But would all this prove to be enough,

With the aim just to win a sprint,

To plant a flag and leave a footprint?

We chose to go to the moon….

And by Mercury, Gemini and Apollo we did!

Ethereal images both ghostly and splendid

Hailed us from another world with words well-timed

“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

We had chosen to go to the moon….

And for a moment we stood there as if in a trance,

Struck dumb by the stark desolation and silence,

In awe at a blue marble suspended in a velvet black sky,

And then we began to fiddle and fidget and wonder WHY?

We then chose to leave the moon…..

When Cynicism set in as adventure turned routine,

And the latest sitcom was the thing to be seen.

A blanket of boredom spread over a fickle world

Chilled by millions and billions at the moon that were hurled.

Selene: Greek moon goddess

We choose now to return to the moon…..

When what had once been revered and respected;

When what held our world balanced and protected;

And of our imagination sparked and illuminated,

Had for too long been ignored and taken for granted.

Do we now choose to go to the moon…

Because others are there for reasons suspect?

To corporatize a chunk of space unchecked?

To have a stepping stone to Mars and yonder?

Or to help us understand, know and wonder?

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2018 will open with a post on the classic 1958 sci-fi film…..

THE FLY!!!!!

©Chris Christopoulos 2017