Eugene Cernan, the astronaut who, on December 14, 1972, was the last to board the Apollo 17 spacecraft, which was returning to Earth, passed away.
“It was a strange feeling,” Eugene later said in an interview with the BBC. - I looked at my tracks and realized that I would never come back here. I experienced a special feeling when I looked over my shoulder at the Earth - she was alive. In these short minutes I wanted to understand the meaning of what was happening: we - everyone living in the world - left the cradle of civilization and for several days considered the moon our home. I wanted to stop time to have time to think about it. I got the opportunity to sit on the porch of the Lord God …
Of the 12 people who have visited the moon, most are still alive. However, the pioneer Neil Armstrong and the "trailing" - Eugene Cernan have already left us forever.
Departing from the moon, the astronaut believed that people leave for a short time. However, since Eugene, not a single person has stepped on the surface of our satellite. Almost 45 years have passed since then. The romantics gave way to the pragmatists, who quickly figured out that it was not profitable to fly to the moon. After the death of Korolev, the Soviet Union gradually curtailed its lunar program. The Americans also refused to fly.
Eugene recounted with bitterness how several years ago he visited the launch site at Cape Canaveral, from where Saturn-5 rockets with Apollo on board were launched to our satellite. Now desolation reigned there, rusty, useless structures protruded from the ground.
“I felt sorry for the past, hurt and even hurt,” Eugene said. “It’s like they took the Santa Maria caravel by Christopher Columbus and said:“America has already been discovered, now this old stuff can be sent to the bottom. The time of discovery is over, you will not go anywhere else."
And yet people have not forgotten about the Moon. Who will be the first after Eugene Cernan to set foot on the surface of our satellite? Russian cosmonauts are hatching ambitious plans. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda that Russia intends to build a manned scientific base on the Moon by 2030.
The Chinese are actively exploring the moon. They have already landed their lunar rover on the surface (it really broke down quickly), this year they are going to get samples of lunar soil and are preparing to land a manned spacecraft on the Moon after 2025. It seems that the development of the heavenly "neighbor" has moved off dead center …
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Eugene said that before leaving, he drew the initials of his TDC daughter, Teresa Down Cernan, on the dusty surface of the Moon. At that time, the girl was 9 years old. Today Teresa is 54 years old. The lunar pause was too long.
QUESTION-RIB
So were the Americans on the Moon or not?
A lot of noise is caused by video footage, which testified that the scenes of the landing on the moon were filmed in the pavilions. This argument is often used by proponents of the lunar conspiracy theory. By the way, there are many of them in America itself. In 2002, there was even a curious incident when a skeptic named Bart Sibrel, accompanied by cameras, began to chase Baz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong's companion on the first flight to the moon, at the exit from the cafe. Bart demanded that he swear on the Bible that he had actually been there. Outraged, Aldrin refused to participate in this farce. Then Sybrel called him a liar and a coward. In response, the 72-year-old veteran of the space epic struck a crushing hook in the jaw of a 2-meter bruiser, which almost knocked the offender off his feet.
Buzz Aldrin proves with his fists that he has been to the moon. A new generation of Americans does not believe in the veracity of the Apollo program
But unlike ordinary people, Soviet space experts never questioned the American landing on the moon. Besides technical tracking data, the lunar soil is the most reinforced concrete argument. The Americans delivered 382 kg of lunar soil to Earth by Apollo spacecraft. A small amount of this substance was donated to the USSR. In 1970, our automated probe Luna-16 brought to Earth about 100 grams of lunar soil. So our specialists could compare two samples and instantly identify a fake, if it had a place to be.
As for the pavilion filming, the explanation is very simple. The Americans filmed some scenes in the scenery when they were preparing a documentary about the flight to the moon. They never hid it. This was done because some key moments - for example, the first step of a person to the surface, were not captured very well with automatic cameras.
The American space agency itself does not directly enter into discussions, does not try to prove anything to anyone. But every now and then presents a kind of circumstantial evidence. Recently, another batch of images from the Moon, transmitted by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) probe, arrived. Scientists assure: the pictures show that US flags are still standing at the landing sites of astronauts.
I managed to see 5 flags out of six installed there. Only the very first flag, stuck by Armstrong and Aldrin in 1969, has not been found. He fell during the launch from the moon. Buzz Aldrin said that he personally saw how the flag was blown off by the jet stream of the "Eagle" - the lander that brought Aldrin and Armstrong to the orbital - command module.
By the way, Eugene Cernana left his "business card" on the moon - the famous Hasselblad 500 camera, which was filmed by all the astronauts. I put the camera on the ground, aiming the lens at the zenith. He explained that he did this in order to be found many years later by subsequent expeditions. And having found, they determined how much the camera was exposed to cosmic radiation.
Yaroslav KOROBATOV, Vladimir LAGOVSKY
