u/Kesselrun_89

The iconic footage of Apollo 17’s Lunar Module lifting off from the Moon was captured by a camera mounted on the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV). The Rover was parked about 145 meters (475 ft) away, and the camera was controlled remotely from Mission Control in Houston by Ed Fendell.
Previous attempts during Apollo 15 and 16 hadn’t gone perfectly. On Apollo 15, a problem with the camera’s tilt clutch prevented it from tracking the Lunar Module during ascent. On Apollo 16, the camera worked, but the tracking wasn’t quite right: the Rover had been parked too close to the LM, and the camera couldn’t tilt upward fast enough to keep up with it.
The biggest challenge was the communication delay. Radio signals take roughly 1.25 seconds to travel between Earth and the Moon, meaning Fendell couldn’t simply watch the screen and react in real time. His camera commands had to be carefully timed in advance, anticipating exactly when the engine would ignite and how quickly the Lunar Module would climb.
On Apollo 17, the third attempt was the charm. Fendell got the timing and tracking just right, producing one of the most remarkable pieces of footage of the entire Apollo program.
And since that day, December 14, 1972… We haven’t been back.
For now.

On May 6, 1968, Armstrong narrowly avoided a fatal crash during a training flight with the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV) at Ellington Air Force Base, Texas. When a sudden loss of helium pressure caused the vehicle to lose control at an altitude of 200 feet, Armstrong was forced to use his ejection seat just seconds before impact. He landed safely by parachute, suffering only a minor cut to his tongue, while the prototype crashed and exploded in flames. Armstrong later credited his training on the LLRV as crucial to the successful manual landing of Apollo 11's Eagle module on the Moon a year later.

When Emperor Titus opened the Colosseum in 80 AD, Rome hosted one of the most incredible celebrations in history: 100 consecutive days of non-stop games. To impress and entertain the crowd, the arena floor was even flooded to stage real-looking naval battles (naumachie) using actual warships.
Every day followed a clear routine: the mornings began with wild animal hunts, midday was reserved for public executions, and afternoons featured the “main events”: gladiator fights.
By the end of the 100 days, thousands of animals and gladiators had lost their lives. Ancient accounts claim that more than 9,000 animals and 2,000 gladiators died during the celebrations, making the Colosseum’s inauguration one of the most extraordinary (and brutal) spectacles in Roman history.

For as long as I can remember, I have dreamed of having the chance to talk to someone who has been to space, especially someone who has walked on the Moon. Unfortunately, living in Italy does not make that dream particularly easy to achieve.

Still, I would like to share my own experience with you because, yes, I have met an astronaut.

A few years ago, I attended an event that could probably be compared to Comic-Con in the United States (but waaay smaller!). While walking through the exhibition stands, I noticed a familiar face: Umberto Guidoni, the first European astronaut to visit the International Space Station.

I approached him and, to my surprise, we ended up having a long and fascinating conversation.

I took the opportunity to ask some questions. One of them concerned what I believe is one of the greatest challenges humanity will face when exploring beyond our Moon: if we communicate using radio waves, which travel at the speed of light, how will we be able to communicate in real time with astronauts on Mars? Even under the most favorable conditions, a signal traveling from Earth to Mars and back would take 6 minutes, more or less (when the two planets are farther apart, the round-trip delay can exceed forty). Unlike lunar missions, where communication delays are barely noticeable, Mars missions will have to deal with the reality that immediate communication simply will not exist.

That led us to discuss Apollo 13 and how crucial communication with Mission Control was in helping the astronauts return safely to Earth. If a similar emergency were to happen near Mars, the situation would be far more difficult to manage. In some cases, astronauts might have to solve critical problems entirely on their own before receiving any guidance from Earth.

He agreed and he told me that future missions will rely increasingly on automation and artificial intelligence. Spacecraft systems will become more autonomous, capable of diagnosing problems and responding to emergencies without waiting for instructions from Earth. As a result, astronauts may gradually become more like supervisors of highly automated systems rather than the hands-on operators we often imagine today.

At first, the idea sounded strange, but I guess that’s the only feasible way. Since you surely cannot win against the rules of physics, the only option is to make spacecraft and crews increasingly capable of operating independently.

And that was it. Sometimes, the most interesting part of meeting an astronaut is not hearing stories about space. It is realizing how many challenges still stand between us and the next giant leap into the Solar System. And occasionally, a simple question can reveal just how different the future of space exploration might be from what we imagine today.

During my visit to the Planetarium in Copenhagen, I came across an incredible piece of space history: an original 206.6-gram lunar sample on loan from NASA, with an estimated value of around 85 million DKK. This rock was collected in December 1972 during Apollo 17 - the sixth and final crewed lunar landing - by astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt at Camelot Crater in the Taurus-Littrow Valley.
Consisting primarily of basalt and ilmenite, it provides direct evidence of lunar volcanic activity from roughly 3.7 billion years ago. Standing just inches away from a piece of the Moon that was brought back after a 75-hour stay on the lunar surface feels unreal, especially considering that no human has set foot on the Moon since Apollo 17 returned on December 19, 1972.