Journey to the Moon

Some people think that it is a waste of time and money to send a manned space-craft to the moon. But this argument has been used about many other ventures, like the first aeroplane, or the voyage of Columbus. Men are always eager to find out more about the worlds around them, and we cannot be sure just which experiments are going to prove useful until we try them.

Until recently men thought of the moon as something very beautiful to look at but quite beyond reach. 'Crying for the moon' has always meant asking for something which can never be ours.

Now this idea is changing, for a space-craft sent from Russia has travelled round the moon and taken photographs of the far side which is always turned away from us, and other rockets have landed on the surface very close to the target areas.

Already we know a great deal about the moon from the use of telescopes and other instruments. It is a world of great extremes of temperature. When the sun is high in the sky the moon's surface becomes as hot as boiling water. At night it is frozen in intense cold. There is no air and it seems unlikely that any life exists on the moon.

But there are many questions to which we would like answers. What kind of soil and rock is there on the moon? Is there a layer of dust into which the space-craft may sink? What are the mysterious white rays which streak the face of the full moon like the lines on a peeled orange? Above all we want to know what made the many thousands of craters, great and small, which are scattered over the moon.