Fifteen years ago, my wife Jackie and I wrote this book to explain the (mostly) ignored but vital role that Australia had played in humanity’s journey to the Moon. Back then, it seemed as if our dreams of journeying, not just to the Moon but beyond, had been lost when Apollo 18 remained on the ground and the Apollo program was brought abruptly to an end, leaving only footprints, some rubbish and flags upon the Moon.
No human foot has touched the Moon’s surface since Apollo 17. Our new ‘space age’ is primarily commercial, not soaring upwards for knowledge or just to say ‘we were there’. Yet, the daily fabric of our lives has been forever changed by the unintentional advances made during those heady days of invention and adventure.
Now in 2019, it is 50 years since that first footprint was left in the moon dust. Those 50 years have gone so quickly, and have brought so much. But at last, Japan, the United States and private companies plan to take people to the Moon: to study, to experiment, to be tourists or miners, or even to create a base from which we may send out ships into the vast darkness beyond our world.
Apollo 11 began as a dream. Maybe these new plans will remain only words. But just like when, as a young man, I watched the Moon and thought, I am helping to send humanity there, and back again, tonight, as an old man, I will watch the Moon and think, Hello, old friend. Perhaps soon you and Earth’s family of nations will meet again.
Bryan Sullivan, 2019