All language subtitles for Apollos.New.Moon.2019.1080p.WEBRip.x264-RARBG

- [Alex] The world cheered
when the first Apollo crew

set foot upon the moon and
returned safely to Earth.

(drum and trumpet music)

Buzz Aldrin, Neil
Armstrong, and Mike Collins

had fulfilled one of the
most audacious dreams

in the history of human exploration.

The exploits of the Apollo
astronauts were well-known.

Few knew at the time that what they saw,

what they found,

would touch off a chain
reaction in science

delivering a new understanding
of how the planets formed,

how the moon was born,

(orchestral music)

and how Earth and life emerged.

These findings, along
with the recent discovery

of water on the moon,

are rebooting Apollo's loftiest vision,

to launch new generations
of human exploration.

Six times in four-and-a-half years,

Apollo spacecraft will coast
over a pocked lunar surface

and descend onto dusty plains.

12 astronauts will climb out

to experience the moon up close.

On tightly choreographed excursions,

they set up experiments,
made measurements,

and collected rocks as they walked

or drove across the alien terrain.

These heroic missions
teased a daring new era

of exploration and achievement.

The investment poured into researching

how to get safely to and from the moon

would act as an accelerant
for technologies

that increasingly shape modern life,

computation,

communications,

electronics,

robotics.

But it's the science produced
in the wake of Apollo,

that will increasingly define its legacy.

The quest to study the moon

was a fundamental goal of the Space Age.

(piano music)

The Soviets developed
the giant N1 launcher

intended to send cosmonauts
beyond Earth orbit.

The N1 never succeeded in
any of its four launches.

It's second attempt crashed back

in one of the largest ever

human-made and non-nuclear explosions.

The American lunar
program pinned its hopes

on the mighty Saturn 5 rocket.

(engine roaring)

- We shall send to the moon,

240,000 miles away

from the control station in Houston,

a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall,

made of new metal alloys,

some of which have not yet been invented,

capable of standing heat and stresses

several times more than
have ever been experienced,

fitted together with a precision

better than the finest watch,

carrying all the equipment
needed for propulsion,

guidance, control,
communications, food, and survival

on an untried mission to
an unknown celestial body.

And do all this, and do
all this, and do it right.

(engine roaring)

(adventurous orchestral music)

- [Alex] In 13 launches, the
U.S. heavy lift launch vehicle

never failed to safely
deliver its payload.

The first human-rated launch

carried the Apollo 8 command
module into lunar orbit.

- [Houston] Roger, safe journey guys.

- [Jim] We'll see you on the other side.

- [Alex] Alone, behind the moon
and out of touch with Earth,

Apollo 8 astronauts
fired their single engine

proving the critical maneuver

for American missions to return.

- [Frank] Oh my God!

Look at that picture over there!

Here's the Earth coming up.

Wow, is that pretty!

- [Alex] This moon shot gave a war-weary,

conflict-ridden United States
something to cheer about.

And set the stage for
humankind's greatest adventure.

- [Houston] Ignition sequence started.

Six, five, four,

three, two, one, zero.

All engines running, lift off.

We have a lift off.

32 minutes across the hour.

Lift off on Apollo 11.

- [Alex] On July the 16th,
Apollo 11 blasts off.

- [Houston] Tower clear.

- [Neil] Roger, we got a roll program.

- [Houston PAO] Neil Armstrong reporting

the roll and pitch program,

which puts Apollo 11 on a proper heading.

- [Alex] Neil Armstrong serves
as the mission commander.

Buzz Aldrin would pilot
the lunar module Eagle

down to the moon's surface.

Michael Collins pilots the command module.

It takes three days for Apollo 11

to cross the nearly 400,000 kilometers

between Earth and moon.

On July the 19th, Collins fires
the command module's rockets

and Apollo 11 enters lunar orbit.

- [Neil] Well there is some
rough country over there.

Something really separate that was.

(soft music)

- [Alex] The next day,

Armstrong and Aldrin
enter the Eagle lander

to begin their descent.

- [Mike] You cats take it
easy on the lunar surface.

If I hear you huffing and puffing,

I'm going to start bitching at you.

- [Buzz] Okay Mike.

- [Alex] Spurious radar data

flood the lunar module's computer

triggering five separate alarms.

- [Buzz] Okay good buddy,

let's hang tight and
look for landing radar.

- [Neil] We'll need that
landing radar by 18,000

with this soundtrack
program alarm, 1202, 1202,

give us a reading on
the 1202 program alarm.

We're going netfly.

If it doesn't reoccur, we'll be gold.

He's taking it in (mumbles).

- [Houston] Roger, we got you.

We're going at alarm.

- [Alex] Each time,

mission control deems it safe to press on.

- [Houston] Okay, all flight controllers

gonna go for landing.

Retro?
- [Retro] Go.

- [Houston] FIDO?
- [FIDO] Go.

- [Houston] Guidance?
- [Guidance] Go.

- [Houston] Control?
- [Control] Go.

- [Houston] Telcomm?
- [Telcomm] Go.

- [Houston] GNC?
- [GNC] Go.

- [Houston] EECOM?
- [EECOM] Go.

- [Houston] Surgeon?
- [Surgeon] Go.

- [Houston] Capcomm,
we're a go for landing.

- [Mike] Eagle, Houston,
you're a go for landing, over.

- [Alex] The moon's gravity is uneven.

That causes the Eagle lander
to pick up some extra velocity.

- [Buzz] (static) velocity.

Standard speed down,
three-and-a-half, 47 forward.

- [Alex] The astronauts sail past

their ideal landing zone.

- [Buzz] Four-and-a-half
down, five-an-a-half down.

(intense music)

- [Alex] Flying above a field
of boulders as big as houses

and running low on fuel,

Armstrong takes manual control

searching for a clean spot to touch down.

- [Astronaut] Three-and-a-half
down, nine forward,

hypervents,

95,

875 feet, it's looking good, down a half.

- [Houston] 60 seconds.

- [Buzz] 60 seconds, lights on.

Down two-and-a-half.

Forward, forward.

Good.

Bring your feet down, two-and-a-half

picking up some dust.

Three feet, two-and-a-half
down, (mumbles).

- [Neil] Now at the 30.

- [Buzz] Pull forward, pull forward,

head to the right a little.

30 seconds,

down a half.

30 seconds, forward, good.

Back light.

- [Neil] Okay, engine stop.

ETA on descent.

Both control, both auto (mumbles)

engine command override off.

Engine is on off.

113 is in.

- [Houston] We copy you down Eagle.

- [Neil] A quality day
here, the Eagle has landed.

- [Alex] About six and a half hours later,

Neil and Buzz set foot upon the moon.

- [Neil] The surface appears
to be very fine-grained

as you get close to it.

It's almost like a powder.

I'm going to step off the lam now.

(piano music)

That's one small step for man,

one giant leap for mankind.

- [Buzz] Are you going to
get the contingency sample?

- [Neil] Right.

- [Alex] Armstrong quickly
grabs a contingency sample.

- [Neil] I'll try to get a rack in here.

Just be careful.

- [Alex] If they should
have to leave quickly,

they won't go home empty-handed.

- [Neil] (mumbles) all it's own.

It's like in the high
desert of the United States.

It's different but it's
very pretty out here.

- [Alex] Armstrong and Aldrin now set out

to gather rocks and lunar soil,

the first samples plucked by human hands

from the surface of the moon.

The astronauts find themselves
on a strange gray world

filled with optical illusions
and unexpected juxtapositions.

With no atmosphere to diffuse it,

the sunlight is harsh with
shadows cast in deep black.

- [Buzz] I look around here,

the contrast in general

is completely by virtue of the shadows.

- [Alex] Only the lander,
the experimental gear,

and the Earth offer swatches of color.

- [Mike] Neil and Buzz,

the President of the United
States is in his office now

and would like to say a
few words to you, over.

- [Alex] Aldrin places a seismometer,

beginning a long study
of the moon's interior.

Recordings of myriad moonquakes
show us that, even today,

as heat from the moon's
formation slowly dissipates,

Earth's companion is steadily shrinking.

- [Buzz] Beautiful, beautiful.

- [Neil] Ain't that something?

A magnificent sight out here.

- [Buzz] (mumbles) ventilation.

Hey Neil, didn't I say we might

see some purple rocks?

- [Neil] Find a purple rock?

- [Buzz] Yep.

Anything more, before I head on up?

- [Neil] Head on up the ladder Buzz.

- [Buzz] Adios amigo.

- [Neil] Okay.

- [Alex] The first Apollo
crew lifted off the moon

aboard the Eagle lander

with two boxes of lunar rocks and dirt

weighing 21.55 kilograms.

- [Buzz] I'm showing a good
bit out of plane velocity

on my cross finders Mike.

- [Mike] Roger, I have
no indication of it.

- [Buzz] Okay Mike, I'll
get in position here

and then you got it.

- [Alex] Just under four hours later,

they docked with the
command module Columbia

for the journey home.

Over the next four decades,

Apollo samples would take
scientists back in time

helping them to piece together

one of the most dramatic
stories ever told,

the birth of the moon and
the rise of planet Earth

as we know it today.

Among the major findings
of the Apollo missions

is that rocks from Earth and the moon

share particular forms of oxygen

that scientists regard as blood types

for solar system bodies.

This means the two worlds
must share a common history.

A picture of the moon's
deep past began to emerge,

some of it written right on its face.

Several large old craters are surrounded

by concentric rings.

You can see them in this image

of a feature called the Mare Orientale.

These circles are of the type
that might have been created

had a giant impact just
splashed down long ago

on a roiling red hot liquid surface.

The first people on the moon encountered

relatively light rocks strewn
about the landing site,

probably forced upward by heavier material

sinking toward the moon's core.

These clues suggest that
early in its history,

the moon's surface was a
vast ocean of molten magma.

The second Apollo mission
would bring this idea

into sharp relief.

November the 19th, 1969,

Pete Conrad and Alan Bean
distend toward a region

called Oceanus Procellarum,
or Ocean of Storms.

This vast plain is
covered in a thick layer

of solidified magma,

perhaps unleashed by a
large ancient impact.

- [Pete] Very good, very good.

- [Alan] Looks good Pete.

- [Pete] Hey there it is, there it is.

Son of a gun, right down
the middle of the road.

- [Alan] Outstanding, 42 degrees Pete.

- [Alex] They're homing in on Surveyor 3,

a robotic lander that
touched down in April 1967.

(light piano music)

The idea is to get within walking distance

but not so close that it
covers Surveyor with dust.

- [Alan] You're looking good.

- [Pete] We got that crater
right where it's supposed to be.

You're beautiful, 257
feet, coming down in five.

- [Alex] Conrad decides to
come down 177 meters short

of Pete's parking lot to
avoid rough terrain ahead

but still a safe 360 meters from Surveyor.

- [Alan] Coming down in two, Pete.

You've got plenty of
gas, plenty of gas dude,

hang in there.

- [Houston] 30 seconds.
- [Pete] Coming down in two.

- [Alan] He's got it made.

Come on in there.

- [Pete] Contact lights.

- [Houston] Roger, copy contact.

- [Pete] Okay, (static) off.

(mumbling among static)

- [Alan] Good landing
Pete, outstanding man.

- [Alex] Now on the moon, they
unmount Surveyor's TV camera

and other parts to take back for analysis.

Later, the detection of
streptococcus bacteria

on Surveyor's parts will suggest that

microbes can survive years in space.

This leads NASA to purposely

destroy the Galileo
mission to Jupiter in 2003

and the Cassini mission to Saturn in 2017

to avoid contaminating moons
that may be ripe for life.

On the lunar surface,

Conrad and Bean pick up a rock
eventually nicknamed, KREEP,

for its constituents, potassium,

rare Earth elements, and phosphorus.

These highland specimens are
a rock type called anorthosite

a product of a molten surface,

its presence is another clue
to the origin of the moon.

Before Apollo, scientists
entertained a range of theories

on where the moon came from,

it's a proto-planet snagged
by Earth as it passed by;

or that formed right along side
the Earth at the same time;

it's what remains of debris
scattered by an asteroid

large enough to carve
out the Pacific Ocean;

or from rocks that exploded into space

when radioactive materials sunk
to the center of the Earth.

(thundering)

The 12 people who walked the lunar surface

saw nothing that could, by itself,

solve the mystery of the moon's formation.

Had they left with only
photographs and memories,

we might never know.

Instead, they brought home rocks

and made meticulous
records of their context.

Those rocks take us back to
a time 4.5 billion years ago.

Within the kingdom of the
sun a gravitational battle

rages amongst nascent planets,

a young hot Earth is growing slowly,

drawing asteroids and dust into its body.

A proto-planet, the size
of Mars, crosses its path.

It has an iron core and a silicate mantle.

Theia is on a collision course with Earth.

As this computer simulation
shows it deals a glancing blow,

tearing away about a third of Earth's mass

and leaving the remainder
spinning rapidly.

The impact envelops Earth
in a dense atmosphere

of super hot vaporized rock.

Much of the wreckage falls back

in a rain of fiery impacters.

About a 1/100th of Earth's
former mass now lies in a disc

eventually settling into a lumpy ring.

This debris ring gradually breaks up

and over about a century's time,

coalesces into a single sphere.

The surface of this new
moon is a hot magma ocean.

Anorthosite rock floats to the surface,

slowly hardening into a crust.

For hundreds of millions of years,

that crust will be battered
by impacts large and small.

(piano music)

The craters we see today bear
witness to this violent age.

4.51 billion years after the moon was born

explorers would step onto this surface

on a journey into it's past
and into that of Earth.

Apollo 14's Alan Shepard and Ed Mitchell

step into a confusing realm,

littered with ancient
creek rock specimens.

They head toward the rim of Cone crater,

on the hunt for rocks
from the lunar interior

blasted out by an impact.

Many contain chemical traces
of multiple impact events

in which rocks melt and recombine

to make mashups known as breccias.

Unlike Earth where weather and
erosion have erased evidence

of all but the largest impacts,

the moon retains a detailed
record of bombardment

in myriad craters, boulders, jagged rocks,

and lunar bedrock
smashed into fine powder.

The film from Apollo
missions shows astronauts

bouncing along with seeming
ease in a low lunar gravity.

In reality, exploring
the moon is hard work.

Spacesuits made rigid by the very air

the astronauts need to breathe,

restrict bending at the
waist, knees, and elbows.

Yet, these soldiers of science were tasked

with maneuvering complex instruments.

- [Alan] Oh, dag-gummit.

- [Alex] With chipping
off and picking up rocks.

- [Alan] Okay base, open the bag.

- [Alex] And with driving core tubes down

into ancient densely compacted soil.

- [Jim] Stop!

- [Dave] Okay.

- [Jim] Well you see that
one went all the way in.

- [Dave] Not quite.

- [Jim] Well I can't get
over those lineations

of layering in Mount Hadley.

- [Dave] Boy I can't either,

that's really spectacular, it's beautiful.

- [Alex] On the next mission, Apollo 15,

the astronauts are given electric drills

to take deeper core samples.

- [Dave] Well it's a great massage.

I'm not putting any force on it at all.

It pulls itself down in.

- [Alex] NASA has ramped
up it's science goals

so the surface daytime is extended.

Dave Scott and Jim Irwin
complete 18 hours of moon walking

and moon driving in the
first powered lunar rover.

- [Dave] Okay Joe I'm going to put

the TV on the rover
now, cable's connected.

- [Alex] Wheeled mobility proves key

to the scientific bounty.

- [Dave] Jim we're heading three-two-zero

bearing three-five-zero and range is 4.3.

- [Jim] Man, that's the
most organized mountain

I've ever seen (laughs).

- [Dave] Yeah they're so
uniform in width you know.

- [Alex] Their landing site lies near

a collapsed lava tube called Hadley Rille.

- [Houston] Five to 3,000 feet, five to...

- [Alex] It's a huge
extrusion of hot magma

that wormed it's way across the surface

then cooled and hardened.

Later on, the roof collapsed
exposing it's hollow interior.

- [Jim] Wow, look at those large blocks

on that west wall.

- [Alex] This long sinuous conduit

is similar to features made
by volcanoes here on Earth.

But Hadley Rille is much
larger, 135 kilometers long,

thanks to the moon's much lower gravity.

Lava tubes like this could make
naturally shielded habitats

for future lunar citizens.

- [Jim] Look at that,
guess what we just found?

Guess what we just found?

I think we found what we came for.

- [Dave] Bag it up.

- [Alex] During their second excursion,

the crew collects sample number 15415,

an object that comes to be
called the Genesis Rock.

It takes scientists back 4 billion years

to a time when the moon's surface

was being pounded by giant
asteroids and comets.

The craters left by these
clashes, still visible today,

are a record of the pummeling
Earth would have endured

in the same period.

This barrage of material is
thought to be a main source

for the water that dominates
the surface of our planet.

The next moon shot pushes
deeper into this ancient period.

- [Charlie] Okay fuel is good, 10%,

there comes the shadow.

A perfect place over here
John, a couple of big boulders.

(mumbles) three looking super.

Give me one click up.

Okay, back it up slightly.

Okay, two down, standby for contact.

- [Alex] Apollo 16
touches down in a region

far from previous landings

to get better triangulation
on seismic data

and to explore higher elevation terrain.

Until Apollo, most theorists believed

the lunar highlands were
built by ancient volcanoes.

Astronauts John Young and Charlie Duke

quickly cast doubts on this hypothesis.

In more than 20 hours of prospecting,

the pair finds almost
nothing of volcanic origin.

Instead, the surface of the moon

appears to be all about impacts.

Duke and Young bag two samples

that will turn out to be the
largest and oldest found,

4.44 billion years, almost
as old as the moon itself.

(eerie music)

- [Jim] Endeavor's on time.

- [Houston] Roger, we saw lift off.

- [Jim] What a ride, what a ride.

- [Al] Well that old visor
with the glare shield

really comes in handy.

- [Alex] Beginning on Apollo 15,

every ship has carried lunar mapping

and panoramic cameras mounted outside.

- [Al] Well that's a mapping camera

and the Stellar Cover 4 is open

and it's jamming up the handrail.

- [Alex] It's the command
module pilot's job

to retrieve film cassettes

because the service
module will be jettisoned

before reentering Earth's atmosphere.

- [Al] Okay, here comes
the mapping camera cover.

Man the old moves out there.

- [Alex] In the darkness of space,

more than 315,000 kilometers from Earth,

astronauts Al Worden, Ken
Mattingly, and Ronald Evans

will each see the moon shrink behind them

as they rush toward Earth

at more than 4,800 kilometers per hour.

- [Al] That's her babe,
right off the nose.

- [Alex] The last Apollo targets a region

where ancient and infant
geology intersect,

it is named Taurus-Littrow.

- [Astronaut] Okay
stand by for pitch over.

Oh are we coming in, oh baby.

There it is, proceeded.

And there it is Houston, there's
Camelot, wide ass target.

- [Astronaut] I see it.

- [Houston] Challenger
you're a go for landing.

- [Alex] Onto this mix
of old and new terrain

steps the Apollo Program's

first and only practicing scientist,

geologist Harrison Jack Schmitt.

(soft piano music)

The youngest material here
comes from a huge crater

far away, the bright feature called Tycho,

known as the bellybutton of the moon.

Analysis confirms that
Tycho is the product

of an asteroid strike
108 million years ago,

very recent compared
to the age of the moon.

- [Harrison] Oh hey,

there is orange soil.

- [Gene] Well don't
move it until I see it.

- [Harrison] It's all over, orange.

- [Gene] Crazy.

- [Alex] Schmitt and his fellow moonwalker

and mission commander Eugene Cernan

also find particles of glass

created in an ancient explosive eruption.

- [Harrison] I've gotta
dig a trench Houston.

Fantastic sports fans.

- [Alex] But is the moon still

volcanically active today?

To help find out,

Apollo 17 has brought the first

gravity measuring instrument,

the transverse gravimeter,

to give scientists a picture

of what lies beneath the surface.

The crew drills three meters down

and 3.8 million years
back into the lunar crust.

- [Harrison] What am I doing down in here?

- [Gene] What were you doing
down in there (laughs)?

- [Harrison] She's going in like

she's into pretty good stuff.

I'm not putting too much pressure on it.

- [Gene] Boy the old fingers
really do suffer on these.

- [Alex] The 111 kilograms
of cylindrical core sections

they bring back to Earth will
tell a story of hot rock,

200 kilometers below in
the basement of the moon.

(piano music)

By the time the last Apollo
astronauts splash down,

the glow of Apollo had
already begun to fade.

Fearing the embarrassment
of a catastrophe in space,

the Nixon White House canceled

the last three Apollo missions.

But the Apollo Program left an indelible

scientific and cultural footprint.

Space has come to
symbolize human ambition.

An Apollo Saturn rocket up a stage

was converted and launched as Sky Lab.

(cheering)

(fire roaring)

NASA went on to build a
partially reusable system

to shuttle astronauts
into low Earth orbit.

The space-faring nations built

the International Space Station

to encourage political
stability and prove cooperation.

Work onboard ISS has advanced
life support technologies.

Meanwhile, private entrepreneurs
launched satellites,

building a robust industry
supplying communications

and navigation services.

Still embracing exploration,

public agencies led by NASA

sent waves of robotic probes
deep into the solar system.

Two of them, the twin Voyager
probes have now ventured

into interstellar space.

Space-based observatories like
the Hubble Space Telescope

projected our eyes and minds
out into the universe at large.

As this golden age of astronomy unfolded,

it sparked a host of new
questions for scientists

laboring over bags of rocks and dirt

brought back from the moon.

The giant impact theory
became the starting point

for a rethinking of the
Earth-moon relationship.

In 2017, researchers
applied new radio isotope

dating techniques to samples
from 1971's Apollo 14 mission.

- [Harrison] Basically
most of these boulders

are the same brownish gray,

at least we've seen one

that was definitely almost white in color,

a very definite difference in color

which we'll document.

We know beneath this dark brown regular

there is a very light brown layer.

- [Alex] This work placed the moon's birth

at 4.51 billion years ago,

fixing a date for an age
of colliding proto-planets

that built the solar system we see today.

If the moon had been born much later,

there would not have been enough
time for the planet to cool

and for life to arrive some
400 million years later.

According to theory,

Theia struck at an off angle

that would have given Earth its tilt

and set it spinning at a rate
of once every five hours.

Over the eons, as the
moon's orbit widened,

it gradually slowed Earth's spin

to the 24 hours we experience today.

(waves roaring)

In the early days, ocean
tides on our young planet

were much larger and more frequent.

As the Earth cooled, water
sloshing onto volcanic islands

would have encouraged chemicals to mix,

forming more complex prebiotic compounds.

(piano music)

Moontides in turn, helped
moderate and regulate

the global climate by causing heat

to flow from equator to pole.

Without the pull of the moon's gravity,

Earth would likely wobble
by as much as 80 degrees.

Imagine if every few thousand years

as Earth changes its tilt,

icebergs appeared in Ecuador and Senegal

and tropical beaches
in Iceland and Siberia.

From the record of impacts
held in the Apollo rocks,

scientists began to imagine that water ice

may be trapped in the deep
shadows of polar craters.

With no atmosphere to transport heat,

these shadow lands would stay cold

for millions if not billions of years.

The first hints came in 1994.

A probe named Clementine
bounced radio signals

off polar regions.

The data were consistent
with water molecules.

Four years later, the lunar prospector

picked up signatures of hydrogen

associated with water at both lunar poles.

In 2009, NASA's Lunar Crater
Observation Sensing Satellite,

LCOSS, aimed an impacter at Cabeas crater

near the South Pole

and then watched what was
kicked up when it hit.

The spectacular, unmistakable
evidence of abundant water.

(water rushes)

Ancient lunar ice could
be key to extending life

beyond our home planet.

Water is the enabler of
space-based civilization,

the far-reaching dream
behind the Apollo Program.

NASA has announced an ambitious plan

to return people to the moon.

However, the agency receives less than

1/8 the annual funding
it got during Apollo

which cost more than $110
billion in today's dollars.

At the same time, private
companies have begun to assume

the mantle of space development.

The techniques proven by Project Apollo

are showing them the way.

Entrepreneurs are investing now

because they foresee a vibrant
space industrial economy.

And the businesses that will drive it

are rooted in the enormous resources

available on the lunar surface.

At just 69 hours away by chemical rocket,

the moon is our most likely
extraterrestrial base.

It has a natural power source, the sun.

The sunlit lunar day length is equivalent

to two weeks on Earth.

A system of solar energy farms

arranged around the moon's equator

could supply constant power.

- [Harrison] And I'm
picking up several pieces

of really breccicular rock out here now.

- [Alex] Silicon and oxygen
extracted from the soil

could be fashioned into
photovoltaic cells.

Solar energy plants
built of lunar materials

could be ferried to Earth orbit
or interplanetary locations.

Solar-powered rovers could
crawl non-stop around the moon.

Apollo samples show the lunar surface

is rich in metals for building,

iron, titanium, and aluminum,

and fine silicon-laden
dirt to make cement.

Lunar prospectors will likely find gold,

platinum group, and rare Earth metals.

The 1967 United Nations Outer Space Treaty

precludes any Earth nation

from claiming the moon
as sovereign territory

but it does not prevent private companies

from staking mining claims.

The body of law governing
how the moon will develop

is in its infancy.

Government space agencies may
at first lead the lunar reboot

but they probably won't
manage it over time.

A politically neutral body,

a lunar authority may be needed

to guide the long-term vision and planning

and to keep the peace should
a lunar land rush begin.

It's dusty surface is a new frontier.

The old moon made us what we are.

Even as the memory of Apollo fades,

the bright light of this new moon

calls us to venture again to its shores

(adventurous orchestral music)

and beyond.

(soft piano music)