Five hundred million years ago, the moon summoned life out of its first home, the sea, and led it onto the empty land. For as it drew the tides across the barren continents of primeval earth, their daily rhythm exposed to sun and air the creatures of the shallows. Most perished ? but some adapted to the new and hostile environment. The conquest of the land had begun.

We shall never know when this happened, on the shores of what vanished sea. There were no eyes or cameras present to record so obscure, so inconspicuous an event. Now, the moon calls again ? and this time life responds with a roar that shakes earth and sky.

When the Saturn V soars spaceward on nearly four thousand tons of thrust, it signifies more than a triumph of technology. It opens the next chapter of evolution.

No wonder that the drama of a launch engages our emotions so deeply. The rising rocket appeals to instincts older than reason; the gulf it bridges is not only that between world and world ? but the deeper chasm between heart and brain.

-- Sir Arthur C. Clarke (L'Envoi)

Remember, and celebrate.

[Update at 3:05 PM PDT]

There's more at Winds of Change, including Jews in space...

Highly inspirational post. Thanks for reminding us.

(Sorry about the multiple trackbacks. I guess I'm still figuring out how to do that.)

A sane enviro-Green would celebrate project Apollo. For a few weekends several decades ago, for almost certainly the first time, there was life on the moon. Once again its a dead world. And it may be that humans are the agents which can bring life to other places like Mars, Europa, Titan and Venus.

Instead the best we get are proposals to turn the Moon and Mars into a giant preserve, as if its more important to keep people out than to let life in.

Humanity is not a cancer, but is Gaia's reproductive system. Some species die in the process of reproducing (salmon anyone?), so maybe "environmental destruction" is just Gaia's putting all it's effort to making new Gaias on other worlds.