Column

Now that India has become the sixth country to launch a Moon mission, it’s time I enlightened you on man’s timeless obsession with Moon…

It began when Galileo made a big mistake in 1600. He saw the Moon through his telescope and thought it was covered with water. “Maria!” he called out, which is actually the Latin word for sea. But the rest of the world - especially male astronomers and male space scientists - thought Galileo had actually spotted a woman on the surface of the Moon. Thus, the world became obsessed with landing on the Moon and started sending people into outer space. Like Russia’s Yuri Gagarin, who became the first man in space on April 12, 1961 - quite by accident!

Gagarin was actually missioned to go to the Moon. But halfway through his journey in Vostok-1, he lost his way and stopped to ask for directions from an alien who was on his way to Uranus for a piles operation. Since there was an obvious communication problem, Gagarin ended up orbiting Earth instead of getting anywhere close to the Moon. For an hour and 48 minutes he went round the Earth, trying to figure out how to get back in. Naturally, when he returned, the world hailed Yuri Gagarin as the first man in space!

The Americans reacted by sending astronaut John Glenn into space, who orbited the Earth three times on February 20, 1962 - at the end of it he got so dizzy that he stood upside down inside his spacecraft. But in 1963, Gagarin tried to show off his achievement to a bunch of Russian women, who reportedly gave him a tight slap and sent Valentina Tereshkova into space. She took 45 revolutions around the Earth, mainly because she ended up having a heated argument with one of her spacecraft’s on-board computers about women’s liberation!

Finally, it was Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin who actually landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969. But while Aldrin wanted to be the first man on the Moon, Armstrong tricked him into a head-or-tail coin toss in zero gravity. “Heads, I go down first,” said Armstrong as he flicked a coin up, “tails, you go first!” While Aldrin watched the coin go up in slow motion and waited patiently for it to come down, Armstrong quietly slipped out of the spacecraft. As a result, Aldrin stepped onto the surface of the Moon 18 minutes later. Angrily, of course!