Page 40 - Mediterraneo e dintorni - nr 13

pneumatici del loro veicolo luna-
re nelle vicinanze della piattafor-
ma del modulo di allunaggio che
fungeva da base di lancio per il
lungo viaggio di ritorno sulla Ter-
ra. Si trattava comunque di sonde
automatiche: a quando gli astro-
nauti? Il falso allarme dell’am-
ministrazione Bush, che lancia il
velleitario progetto di una base
lunare, ha comunque il merito di
Buzz Aldrin sulla Luna Buzz Aldrin - Esperimenti
(Image Credit NASA) (Image Credit NASA)

riunire scienziati, medici e inge- non ci si limita a un rapido viag- Lo spettacolo del lento succedersi
gneri a discutere sul come e sul gio di andata e ritorno (le missioni delle fasi lunari implica una sem-
perché tornare sul nostro satelli- Apollo duravano complessiva- plice verità astronomica: il “gior-
te. Esattamente come aveva fatto mente una decina di giorni) lo sce- no” lunare dura poco più di 29
Verne 150 anni prima. In effetti, se nario cambia completamente. giorni terrestri. Di conseguenza

the countries of the rising sun, orbited nauts and the tire tracks of their lunar tely changes. How could a lunar colony,
around the Moon: the Japanese Kaguya, vehicle near the platform of the landing however small, get the energy it needs to
the Indian Chandrayan, the Chinese module that served as a launching base survive the long lunar night? Dependen-
Chang’e. A few years earlier, Europe had for the long return to Earth. However, ce on the Earth would be total, so it would
also joined the Moon Club, which for a these were automatic probes: when did be necessary to provide it regularly with
long time had been the exclusive prero- the astronauts? The false alarm of the air, water, food and fuel. This is why the
gative of the United States and the then Bush administration, which launches the last missions have sought - uselessly - for
Soviet Union. And to definitively deny unrealistic project of a lunar base, still the large ice deposits that are thought to
any conspiracy theory such as “we have has the merit of bringing together scienti- have been preserved in the permanently
never been on the moon”, the American sts, doctors and engineers to discuss how shadowed bottom of some craters that are
probe “Lunar Reconneissance Orbiter” and why to return to our satellite. Exact- found in the lunar polar regions. But the
had taken unequivocal photographs of ly as Verne had done 150 years earlier. dream remains and we have begun again
the landing sites of the Apollo missions, In fact, if you do not limit yourself to a to hope that, as Verne wrote, “in twenty
in which the footprints are clearly distin- quick return trip (Apollo missions lasted years the half of the Earth will have visi-
guished, still unpolished, of the astro- a total of ten days) the scenario comple- ted the Moon!”

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