A Lament for the Moon
I am not a luddite. I’m not.
I am not one of those romantics who would prefer to live in a Jane Austen English Country House, or Laura Ingall’s home on the prairie or in a La Boheme attic in Paris. I am grateful that I live in a time where I can have cataract surgery to save my eyesight and air conditioning in the Texas heat and watch hurricanes and tornadoes coming in real time on my laptop. I fully understand that all of these modern innovations come at a price to the natural world that I love so much. However, I think I may have come up hard upon my limit. I’m ready to draw a line in the moondust and say, “This far and no farther!”
I belong to the last generation to look upon a pristine moon. Untouched. Just as God made it. Pure and undisturbed. No one born after 1959 can say that. We are like the first tribe who came upon the Grand Canyon and saw it for the first time, untraversed by any human. We are like the mountain people of old who looked up at Mt. Everest before Sir Edmund Hillary climbed it. There was not a single tent, rope ladder, energy bar wrapper, or corpse in the pristine snow. Looking upon an untouched piece of creation like the moon is as close as we will ever get to the feeling Adam and Eve must have had when God presented them with the Garden of Eden, like a new work of art smelling of fresh oil paint, a gift unspoiled.
The moon is not like a stretch of public beach, overrun by multitudes of sunbathers, nor is it like a private shoreline, closed off to all but a few, or restricted to the birds and seals. The moon is both public and private, fully accessible to all and utterly unreachable by anyone. Everyone in the world can have it as an ornament in their own midnight gardens, like a giant paper lantern hanging in their tree. Anyone, from the richest to the poorest, can invite it to come through their bedroom windows at night, illuminate their bed, make shadows on their floor. It is the personal delight of every toddler discovering it for the first time and the personal comfort of every senior looking upon it for the last time. Moonlight dinners, moonlight walks, moonlight dances, are all very personal memories that are free for everyone to make. It’s my moon, everyone’s moon, no one’s moon. We may be the last generation who will experience the moon this way.
As space technology advances, we will look up someday and see “things” on the moon: structures, roads, excavations, transports, complexes, military installations, mining operations, surveillance apparatus, weaponry, even giant billboards to flash messages to people on the earth. There will be hotels and tourists. And trash; there will be lots of trash. If you doubt that, think of Mt. Everest. Why is it covered with trash? Because the environment is so harsh it’s too expensive and dangerous to clean it up. Even the dead are not retrieved. Will this happen to the moon for the same reason? Will the moon become the next Everest for tourists, to just get there and get your five-minute photo-op and then leave everything behind while you still have fuel and oxygen? Will it be the next most convenient place to ship and dump industrial waste? The day may come when gazing upon the moon will be about as romantic as gazing at a shopping mall or oil refinery.
I understand the thrill of exploration and the need for the expansion of commerce and trade. And I understand the need for waystations for these epic journeys. I live near the charming little village of Salado that was built around a stagecoach stop along the Chisolm Trail. It served as a waystation through the wilderness for many a cattleman and merchant going north, then branching off to the East and West. It was the Texas version of the Silk Road. A Leather Road, I suppose you could call it. The original inn is still there, operating as a restaurant, a waystation now for tourists along the I35 corridor. The village still cherishes and protects not only it’s history, but the natural beauty that was there when the inn was first built.
The moon will become such a waystation someday, if space exploration continues as projected. When that day comes, we have a choice: to preserve the natural beauty of the moon as the Village of Salado has preserved its ancient oaks and meandering creek or despoil it as we have so many other places on earth. Will we handle our beautiful moon with the love and care she deserves, or will we be like the character Pig Pen from the Peanuts comic strip, spreading our endless clouds of dirt and debris as we leapfrog through the cosmos? Have we learned anything? Will we change? Will our great-grandchildren look up and see the same paper lantern moon hanging in their evening gardens or are we truly the last generation on earth to behold the last bit of pristine Creation?
I hate to say it, but I think I am glad that I will not be around to learn the answer. I remember being very small, hanging out in the back yard with my dad, looking at the moon and stars. I remember him laughing when I asked him if I could reach the moon with a ladder. To humor me, he dragged a ladder out of the garage and stood close behind me as I climbed it to the top and reached for the moon. “See? It’s a lot farther away than it looks,” he said. “But it looks so close!” I replied. “Could I reach it from the roof?” I asked. “Not even from the top of the highest mountain,” he replied, “not even from an airplane.” Then he gave me binoculars so I could see the craters. I am glad that my last sight of the moon will be as beautiful and awe-inspiring as it was that magical evening in the back yard with my dad. On the day I die, it will still be no one’s moon, everyone’s moon, my moon. What happens to it after that will be the next generation’s decision.