Lunar-cy

Bad pun, sorry.

I went to see Moon last night. It's a fantastic film, definitely recommended for anyone who enjoys traditional science fiction - you know, those films where you didn't have to show people being mercilessly hunted down by aliens or space ghosts, then ripped to shreds in front of your very eyes. It's supposedly an homage to the likes of 2001: A Space Oddessy, and it's easy to see why comparisons have been drawn between the two.

It can in no way be considered a coincidence that the film has been released in the month when we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the moon landings. Much has been said in the past about the veracity of NASA's claims that it did in fact manage to put a man on our natural satellite. I tend to believe that they did so, even in the face of strong belief from the conspiracy theorists that the landings never happened. Even now they must be frantically blogging about how the latest satellite pictures of the landing site are faked.

So, no, I'm not going to come up with some astonishing reason why the moon landings were faked. I'm in fact going to discuss why it is we've not been back since our brief, several-year dalliance with that eternal presence in the night sky.

The moon landings have often been viewed as the result of the ultimate non-hostile arms race. That's a bit of a contradiction in terms, yes, but it's also quite right. At the time of the race for space, the world was gripped with tension regarding the potential for all-out, extinction event nuclear war. It terrified people that politicians and war-mongerers (and let's face it, there were plenty of the latter on each side) had the power over large-scale destruction of cities and, more importantly, people.

The space race gave a new direction to the minds of the masses. Whether or not the Americans and the Soviets conspired to make it happen remains a point of some conjecture. Certainly there was a very sudden desire to be in space, more so than ever before. Either way, the result was a sudden leap forward in technological capability, the likes of which are rarely seen outside of wartime.

Then, once America had been to the moon a few times, suddenly no-one was interested any more. Perhaps it was the association of the space race with the nuclear arms race which meant that, as nuclear disarmament became more popular, suddenly the achievements were no longer politically correct. That wouldn't go far enough to explain why we've not been back, though.

I think there's something else at play, too.

Ever since the dawn of the industrial revolution, the world had been forging forward with technological advances at an astonishing rate. When our enthusiasm for bigger and better and more mechanical faltered, it was bolstered by first one world war, and then, handily, another. By the 1960s, though, despite the cold war driving us forward, we were beginning to flag once more. Perhaps, subconsciously aware of this, the human race decided to try advancing one more time.

The space race was, I believe, the last hurrah of the industrial revolution, the swansong of an attitude that the end goal was worth the cost; that failure simply wasn't an option; that we could bloody well do it, whatever 'it' was.

Since then our enthusiasm for advance of this kind has waned. The new industrial revolution has taken over, where microchips are more important than machines. Microchips don't get you to the Moon - after all, I was taught as a child (perhaps a little shortsightedly) that there was more computing power in my pocket calculator than the Apollo modules which took men there. Nowadays, of course, computers control everything, and that is possibly part of the problem.

There's something else, too, and it's a bugbear of mine. I refer to the combined safety/blame culture which has insidiously crept its way into modern life. The theory goes that all accidents are preventable (as long as you fill out enough paperwork) and that all accidents, regardless of cause or associated randomness, are someone's fault.

This is a silly, woolly-headed, Daily Mail sort of attitude, and it's ruined the advancement of the human race. Only when we take risks do we receive the greatest rewards.

Our unwillingness to take even the slightest chance is, in my opinion, an underlying cause of our failure to return to the Moon, and then make the leap to Mars.

Luckily, our attitudes are changing. People are beginning to rebel against our current development malaise, and steps are being taken to redress the balance.

Let's hope it's not too little, too late.