Since its founding in 1904, The Explorers Club has been the meeting place for a clandestine group of explorers who have seen more of the world and outer space than anyone would think possible. Dedicated to the advancement of scientific exploration, field research, and the ideal that the instinct of exploration is in our DNA, the Club is a members-only institution, where outstanding scientists, astronauts and explorers are part of it. The highest mountains, the deepest oceans, the furthest lands, the polar caps, even the Moon itself have been explored by the club´s members. The members of this club have created history: Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the first people to reach the top of Mount Everest, Roald Amundsen, first person to reach the South Pole, Frederick Cook and Robert Peary, the first men to reach the North Pole, aviator Charles Lindberg who made the first solo transatlantic flight, Thor Heyerdahl who sailed his hand-made raft from Peru to Polynesia, Titanic film director James Cameron and deep-sea explorer, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, the first men to walk on the lunar surface, or Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, were/are part of The Explorers Club, amongst others. The list is mind-blowing.
The newer members are different kind of pioneers, many of them uncovering the world´s greatest secrets or touching upon undiscovered territories, such as the group of Hong Kong explorers who last year found dozens of dinosaur bones in the Gobi dessert of Mongolia using drone imaging scanners.
I was extremely honored to be accepted as a Fellow of The Explorers Club and attend the 115th Explorers Club Annual Dinner (ECAD) last Saturday 16th March in New York, the largest ever gathering of Apollo astronauts and Moon walkers to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the landing of Apollo 11 on the Moon in 1969. The event not only celebrated the anniversary of Apollo 11, but other lunar missions from the Apollo Program.
The event began with a cocktail reception at the Explorers Club Headquarters on the New York Upper East Side, a townhouse on a street of elite mansions. But beyond the iron gates and under the stone archway, a world of secrets awards. The six-story mansion is filled with items from journeys, stuffed animals, flags that went to the moon, teeth from rare elephant species, moose heads and stuffed penguins, relics, artifacts and plaques on the walls commemorating member firsts. History is alive in the building. But as inspiring as it was, the weekend´s greatest event was the Explorers Club Annual Dinner, declared as the`Met Gala of Exploration´, where the spirit of expeditions could be felt all around. The starters of the dinner verified that this was no ordinary dinner: alligator meatballs, crickets durian fruit tarts, scorpion candies, baked spiders, insect puddings, roasted iguana…
Astronauts and explorers that took part in these courageous missions were in the event. The conversations were truly out of this world; talks were not about the weather but of space travel and explorations of the most remote areas of Earth. The Apollo astronauts shared anecdotes of their flights to the moon, not only to look back but also to look forward to our next `giant leaps´ in space exploration.
`When Neil, Buzz and I returned from the Moon, a lot of scientists were worried that we would have brought back with us some harmful pathogens, and therefore we should be locked up in quarantine for two weeks, in the company of a couple of white mice. About the same time John Steinbeck wrote a best seller `Of mice and men´. It got me thinking: three men that made this trip, but was it a success or was it a failure? The ultimate decision rested with the white mice. If they died we were in big trouble. So mice and man, which is more important? I think mice!´ – said Michael Collins, pilot of the Command Module of Apollo 11.
`Mike and I were running in the quarantine facility, and as we looked down we saw a crack on the floor, in the quarantine facility! and ants were crawling in and out! […]. We want to do artificial gravity for a Lunar Cruiser around the Moon, and a Mars Cruiser, with the orbit to orbit transfer vehicle […] But who is going to do all of this? The US? No! we don’t want you taxpayers paying for all of this, we have a coronation of nations, but we have to use up the billionaires here and big companies: Elon Musk and SpaceX, Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin, then NASA together with Europe, Russia, Japan and China. We can organize this if we have a plan, but we have to hurry up!…´ – said astronaut Buzz Aldrin.
But why back to the Moon?
Because we are entering a new phase of lunar exploration. In 1911 the first humans reached the South Pole. But for nearly 50 years nobody thought about traveling overland again. This is where we are now with regard to the Moon; we have sent robotic space probes and satellites to study its surface and subsurface, while we remained on Earth. It has been 50 years. Now it is time to go back.
When we go back however, things are going to be done differently. As Buzz Aldrin reiterated, Moon trips are going to be partnered with commercial industry. NASA, amongst others, will help reduce the risks and costs. There is already a base camp in low Earth orbit: the International Space Station (ISS). Soon there is going to be another base camp, the Lunar Orbital Platform Gateway, an international project led by NASA to create a lunar-orbit space station, designed to be used as a solar-powered communications hub, habitation module, science laboratory and storage of rovers. This approach of having commercial and international partners is more resilient, which makes the excitement about going back to the Moon higher than ever before. It is somehow contagious. Everybody is talking about space trips. Everybody is ready to go back to the Moon. And I believe this is the proper path, the Moon is the ideal place to test sending astronauts to Mars and other worlds.
Recently, on January 3rd 2019, China did something no other nation has done before: it landed a spacecraft (Chang´e-4) and rover (Yutu-2) on to the surface of the far side of the Moon, with a formidable scientific payload package and impressive mission profile, which will allow the mission to conduct the first astronomy observations from deep space. Almost equally astonishing is the communication relay satellite that sits into a lunar halo orbit for direct radio contact, to allow communication and commanding between the lander and the rover.
In Oriental cultures, the Moon has a special place, especially for the Chinese. On the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar, they celebrate the Moon Festival, when the moon is full. Many Chinese legends are related to the Moon, the most common one is `Chang´e ben yue‘ (嫦娥奔月) where Chang´e, the goddess of the Moon and her jade rabbit Yutu, were expelled to the Moon forever. It is understandable why China named its lunar space probes Chang´e and Yutu.
A Fellow of The Explorers Club since 2005, Leroy Chiao, a Chinese-American engineer, former NASA astronaut and NASA ISS science officer, has been the first American invited to visit the Astronaut Center of China in Beijing, where he met Fei Junlong and Yang Liwei, the first two Chinese national astronauts.
The timing for these international collaborations is remarkable. This time we are not going to see another space race for dominance in spaceflight capability, as it happened between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 60s. This time our explorations are going to be cooperative between nations, as they are aboard the ISS. And when we go back, we are not only going to study the Moon but also human exploration to other worlds, such as Mars, Titan or Europa. The next lunar trip will be much more than leaving footprints and flags, it will be about doing sustainable science to keep pushing our boundaries and help us move forward in space exploration. What the future hold is uncertain, but what is certain is that the Moon will be our pivot point in the new space era. I assure you, I can hardly wait.
