The Fallen Astronaut

Up on The Moon, There's a Tiny Monument That Will Break Your Heart

Jacinta Bowler on the 29th April 2019 wrote an article about a tiny aluminium sculpture of an astronaut with a beautiful message that is lying on the moon.

The sculpture is called The Fallen Astronaut and it was placed on the moon by Apollo 15 commander David Scott on 1 August 1971 to commemorate all the humans who have died advancing space exploration. The little figurine lies next to a plaque listing the 14 astronauts and cosmonauts who had died to date. (sciencealert.com)

Read the full story of The Sculpture on the Moon: Scandals and Conflicts obscured one of the most extraordinary achievements of the Space Age
to learn why the artist Paul van Hoeydonck never realised his dream to be bigger than Picasso and why his little astronaut inspired scandal not celebration.

The moon after Apollo 12 left lunar orbit. This photo was taken from the Command Module in November 1969 (Credit: slate.com/courtesy of NASA)

SPACESPEAK

I launched a question the other day asking why we call our moon The Moon and suggested it should have a proper name.

Our Social Media Guru Matt Cameron responded through Twitter as you can read below.

I think the answer to Matt's question about why do the other moons have names is to distinguish them from The Moon.

For your interest and thanks to Wikipedia:

Io was discovered in 1610 and is named after the mythological character Io, a priestess of Hera who became one of Zeus' lovers.

Triton was discovered in 1846 and was named (through a somewhat convoluted story) after the Greek sea god and son of Poseidon (the equivalent of the Roman god Neptune.

Callisto was discovered in 1610 and is named for a woman turned into a bear by Zeus.

So our Moon had better have a Greek name. I have a very dear Greek friend named Pete so I'm hereby naming The Moon after my friend- Pete!!