The moon has been a visible aspect of human life and culture since long before even the first written records, with cultures around the world creating art, artifacts, and writing depicting the moon and its changing face. The fascination with the Moon continues today, as the lunar surface has been explored with robotic and human missions and returned rock and soil samples for study in laboratories. And yet, even as the moon has become an object of scientific study, it retains its appeal to the artists, writers, and dreamers drawn by its enduring beauty and mystery.
Matthew Shindell, the National Air and Space Museum’s curator of earth and planetary science, provides a guided tour of the moon and the historic love affair with Earth’s only natural satellite, weaving together the various narratives and themes that have given the Moon meaning throughout human history. From ancient carvings and cave paintings to contemporary cinema, medieval Christian ideas about the structure of the cosmos to present-day lunar science and exploration, and early fictional tales of voyages to the moon to planning a successor to the Apollo lunar landings of the 1960s and 70s, the moon and our ideas about it have a deep history.
Shindell is the editor of the new volume Lunar: A History of the Moon in Myths, Maps, and Matter (University of Chicago Press), which is available for purchase.
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