The versatile poet and Bollywood lyricist, Shamsul Huda Bihari, once in a radio interview lamented the landing of humans on the moon. He rued the fact that technology and science have ruined the poetic imagination where the moon, especially the full moon, was frequently used to describe the beloved’s beauty. AdvertisingAn otherwise unremarkable object in the vast cosmos, our natural satellite, the moon, has of course fascinated humans for millennia. In 2008, an instrument called the Moon Mineralogy Mapper on board the lunar orbiter, Chandrayaan 1, confirmed the presence of surface ice on the moon. If all goes according to schedule, the first commercial landing on the moon could be as early as 2020 and within a couple of decades we might see semi-permanent habitation on the moon.

Source: Indian Express July 19, 2019 18:33 UTC