Lunacy: Our Obsession with the Moon

The Moon was never so popular as in 2019, the 50^thanniversary of The Apollo 11 mission. Now the celebrations have faded and it’s time to reflect on how we got to the moon and what happens next.

German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun designed and built the V2, the Nazi’s “Vengeance” rocket that not only killed several thousand Britons and Belgians, but also ten or even fifteen thousand French POWs forced to assemble  the rockets in an underground factory. 

Von Braun always claimed that he saw building V2s as the only way to keep moving toward his ultimate goal: sending humans to the Moon or Mars. 

At the end of the War, von Braun defected to the United States, became head of their space program, was responsible for the Saturn V that went to the Moon and became a national hero. An unlikely one perhaps. 

But surely the future is brighter. No Nazis flying rockets anymore. WE can live on the Moon in peace! The high adventure suggested by flying to the moon has been countered over and over in science fiction, where lunar life has been portrayed as a despairing, repetitive, dark way of living. Two weeks of daylight, two weeks of night; extreme temperatures and radiation. Why would we ever want to go there? And how would a moon colony ever be a good place to live?

This show provides moon-themed music from beginning to end, an astronaut trying to walk fast enough on lunar soil to keep pace with the setting sun, and a former moon resident telling it like it really is.

Presented at the Jasper Dark Sky Festival in October, 2019