Moon Ships: the Ghost of Elephant Island
Dear Susannah
What impresses me most is the sense of tranquillity. Galileo is a peaceful ship and the views from her observation ports reinforce that. I know the name’s been taken already, at least as far as the history books are concerned, but I can think of no better description of our home than Tranquillity Base, the name given to the Apollo 11 landing site. I don’t think Neil and Buzz will mind if we borrow the name. We are about their business after all, trying to take that next "Giant Leap", the one that has been so long in coming.
Speaking of which, we have now passed beyond the orbit of the Moon, a giant leap in its own right and the first real milestone in our journey. A small achievement when measured against the official objectives of the mission but a major one nevertheless. We have now travelled further from Earth than any humans in history and our journey has barely begun. This is our “Furthest South” to date and no mean achievement at that.
The literary spectre of J.R.R.Tolkien keeps bobbing in our wake, tracking our orbit. I look at the eldritch surface of the Moon and think of The Grey Havens, knowing that we would find no sanctuary on the desert world beneath us. One member of the crew has suggested stripping the Apollo landing sites of anything useful; ours is after all a scavenger operation. But no one has the heart for it. It would be like prying apart The Trafalgar, or opening up the long buried tent in which the final members of Scott’s polar expedition died.
I feel the ghosts of those two great rivals, Shackleton and Scott, looking over my shoulder as I type these words. What would they have made of our plans and ambitions, no less audacious in our age that theirs were in the 20th century? Galileo is our Discovery or Endurance. I only hope we don’t get permanently stuck in the ice the way Shackleton did during his famous 1916 expedition, the one that resulted in the greatest open boat journey of all time, from Elephant Island to South Georgia, a legendary feat of human endurance.
I always preferred Shackleton to Scott. Shacks had a bit of the Irish rogue about him, and wasn’t afraid to take risks that the more cautious and calculating Scott may have baulked at. For me the greatest figure in polar exploration because he was the most human of characters. I hope we do as well as he did in our own endeavours, and that history will look back on us with similar affection. Elephant Island and the Moon have much in common. Both are bleak and desolate, the last place any man would want to set foot upon. How Shackleton’s men survived there for so many months is almost beyond comprehension. There is no worse spot on the face of the Earth to be stranded by the vicissitudes of an arctic winter and the vagaries of fate. I can easily imagine Shackleton’s men trapped down there on the Moon, waiting for the Boss to return, as he eventually did, losing not a single member of his crew.
I hope we will be as fortunate.