The moon was once a frontier. But new worlds now beckon | Martin Rees
by Martin Rees from Science | The Guardian on (#4KHVN)
Fifty years ago, Nasa's moon landing enthralled my generation. But the cosmos holds other secrets that space exploration could unlock
My favourite childhood reading in the 1950s included the Eagle comic, especially the adventures of Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future - where the brilliant artwork depicted orbiting cities, jet packs and alien invaders. When spaceflight became real, the suits worn by the Soviet cosmonauts (and their US astronaut counterparts) were already familiar, as were the routines of launching and docking. My generation avidly followed the succession of heroic pioneering exploits such as Yuri Gagarin's first orbital flight and Alexei Leonov's first spacewalk.
Related: The Apollo 11 moon landing was a distraction from America's problems
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