Sunday | 12 January 2025 | Reg No- 06
বাংলা
   
Sunday | 12 January 2025 | Epaper

50th Moon-landing Anniversary

Fables and folklore vs moon-landing: A tribute to Neil, Edwin and Michael

Published : Tuesday, 23 July, 2019 at 12:00 AM  Count : 337
Mahbubar Rahman
A celestial body, endowed with beauty and grace, hangs on space and ploughs the bosom of the sky East to West bound in her daily routine exercise ever since it emerged millions of years ago to become planet Earth's one and only satellite; is our dear Moon. For thousands of years the Moon inspired the philosophers to be pensive and thoughtful in deciphering the mystery how it stays hanged on the void of space; and poets to compose thousand verses and poems adorning its beauty and grace.

Moon equally inspired men and women immersed in the sea of love and romance for ages. Emerging in crescent shape as new-moon at the beginning of lunar month, Moon attains in full busting youth on 14th day of lunar month what we call full-moon. Beauty of full-moon and its eye-soothing moonlight specially enthrals men of mind. Moonshine that falls and reflects on crystal clear waters of running rivers, streams and water-bodies disseminate mind-boggling beauty making men of mind immersing in deep thoughts and ecstasy.

For ages, beauty and grandeur of the moon gave rise to thousands tales and fables in human minds. In our childhood days we were charmed and enamoured to listen folk-lore and fables telling that the moon is the huge golden disc in the sky where a big banyan tree (refer to moon spot or macula) is in place under the foot of which a grand old lady (Chander Boori) garbed in all whites weaves her fabrics with reeling spinning wheel in her hand. Sound of the spinning wheels of that grand old lady travelled and transmitted to the ears of young kids in those good old days through the chirps of crickets in nearby wood one step next to home. Crickets' both enduring and intermittent sound would create special sound affects in ears similar to releasing strings from the wheel intermittently by the grand old lady doing her never ending weaving spree on the foot of the banyan tree on the surface of the moon.

Apart from the tales and folk-lore being told in this part of the world, lot more folklore are in place in other parts of the world including Africa and Asia.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) the great inventor, scientist and artist, made copious notes throughout his career including charting the night sky. The chart describes the refection of light; according to the alignments of the Sun, Moon and Earth. Leonardo da Vinci's illustration shows the Sun and Moon revolving round the Earth, accepting the theory popularized by Greek astronomer Ptolemy, that the Earth occupied the centre of the universe. Leonardo wrote, of course, approximately 100 years before the invention of telescope by Galileo. (1564-1642)
'In one of his diagram Leonardo illustrated that the moon was covered with water, and its surface would operate like a convex mirror reflecting light. We no longer believe this to be true but it's always fascinating to get a first hand insight into the mind of a genius such as Leonardo da Vinci'.

'On moon landing, in his 1865 novel 'From the Earth to the Moon', Jules Verne tells the story of the Baltimore Gun Club, a post American Civil War Society of weapons enthusiasts, and their attempts to build an enormous Columbian space gun and launch three people--the Gun clubs president, his Philadelphian armour-making rival, and a French poet--in a projectile with the goal of Moon landing'.

With enormous folk-lore, fables, and artists' creative work on Moon based on imaginations and experiments, Moon remains as the symbol of beauty and grace to humans who equally adulate moon as the symbol of peace and tranquillity. Contrary to appreciation of aesthetic value of Moon, Bengali poet Sukanto, at one point, turned rebellious against that prevailing social system and wrote "The world is insipid and lacklustre without poetic grandeur in the kingdom of hunger, beauty of a full-moon looks like a piece of burnt bread in the eyes of a famished man". Eye soothing beauty and grandeur of full-moon sometime gives rise to eerie feeling when mysterious werewolf hauntingly growls in full-moon night as is watched in thrilling Hollywood movies of good old days.  

Humans' cravings and desires to visit Moon began from the time of Renaissance and its aftermath in Europe with the advancement of science and technology. Space-age began in late 1950s with erstwhile Soviet-Union and America as active competitors to each other in space-race. In the earlier stage of space race, the Soviet took the lead with sending space vehicle Sputnik in the space on 4th October, 1957 and subsequently sending a dog named Liaka in sputnik-2 followed by sending first human being Yuri Gagarin on the Earth's orbit on 12th April, 1961--leaving America far behind in the space-race. This became a prestige issue for the Americans and viewing the issue with serious note, US president John F Kennedy vowed in 1961 to put men on the surface of the moon and bring them back safely on the Earth by the end of 1960 s after the mission is accomplished.

National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) was accordingly entrusted with the challenging task. After years of researches and conducting few unmanned and manned flights as well in the orbit of Moon by NASA, at last the D-day fulfilling the American dream came true when Lunar Module Eagle touched the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969 on board Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin with Command Module pilot Michael Collins flew the Command Module Columbia alone in lunar orbit. Neil Armstrong became the first human being to step into the lunar surface 6 hours 39 minutes later.
On July 21, 1969; Buzz Aldrin joined him 19 minutes later on landing, Neil Armstrong exclaimed and said "it is a small step for man and giant leap for mankind" thus creating a history and mile-stone in space explorations.  They spent about 2 hours 15 minutes together outside the space-craft and collected 47.5 pounds of lunar materials to bring back to earth. Armstrong and Aldrin spent 21 hours 31 minutes on the lunar surface at a site they named Tranquillity Base before lifting off to rejoin Columbia in lunar orbit.

While walking on lunar surface, Moon-Men did not find, to the disappointment of age-old story tellers and story listener enthusiast like me, any trace of grand old lady (Chander Boori) under the foot of the proverbial banyan tree, as we blissfully imagined and believed in our good old childhood days.

Further, Moon-Men, instead of collecting gold nuggets from the golden disc as was imagined, collected only black carbonized nuggets from the lunar surface, for scientific experiments, which were subsequently put on public display across the world including Dhaka and Chittagong by the courtesy of United States Information Service (USIS). I had the rare opportunity to view lunar rocks at USIS, Chittagong, with thrills and excitement. As a part of their triumphant world tour, Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins marched through the street of Dhaka by an open-hood Cadillac amid roaring cheers and jubilations in October, 1969.    

Fifty years ago, back on Earth, the moments of Moon-landing was full of unbound thrills and excitement. It created a surge and waltzing waves in the minds of all those, especially the young men & women, who followed and monitored days long running commentary aired by the Voice of America radio network.

A vibrant young man of 20 years of age as I was in 1969 before 50 years from now, I was grossly imbibed and glued my ears to VOA's running commentary until the Eagle touched down the surface of the Moon. Those pleasant moments are still cemented indelibly in the memory and it seems that those golden moments just came the other day in my life before 50 years of the Earth's chronological time which is not even equal to a trillionth fraction of a second of cosmic time that we have been all passing through the maze of the expanding universe.

In the month of July 2019, the world is celebrating month long 50th anniversary of Moon-landing. We cherish to join in the celebration with the hope that the day is not very far away when men will set their foot on planet Mars by unbound human ingenuity.

This article is a tribute to Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin and Michael Collins.
The writer is a former Civil Servant






LATEST NEWS
MOST READ
Also read
2019 marked a rise in border killings
China’s sea claims to face stiff test in 2020
India’s rising surge of ‘Hindu’ nationalism!
Renewable energy next important global power source
Is BD worried of Indian issues?
Single digit interest rate dilemma
The other side of growth and some thoughts for new year
Finance and more for SME
Editor : Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury
Published by the Editor on behalf of the Observer Ltd. from Globe Printers, 24/A, New Eskaton Road, Ramna, Dhaka.
Editorial, News and Commercial Offices : Aziz Bhaban (2nd floor), 93, Motijheel C/A, Dhaka-1000.
Phone: PABX- 41053001-06; Online: 41053014; Advertisement: 41053012.
E-mail: district@dailyobserverbd.com, news©dailyobserverbd.com, advertisement©dailyobserverbd.com, For Online Edition: mailobserverbd©gmail.com
🔝
close