One small step, one giant leap
Maswood Alam Khan | Monday, 21 July 2008
EXACTLY 39 years back on July 21 in 1969 at 8:56 in the morning, Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) Time (02:56 UTC), Neil Alden Armstrong alighted on the moon's surface his footstep, first as a human being, and spoke his famous line: "That's one small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind" six and a half hours after the Apollo 11 mission's lunar module had landed safely on a location called "The Sea of Tranquility" at 20:17:40 UTC July 20---fulfilling an American dream Presidenthttp://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/ President_of_the_United_States ohn . Kennedy wished to ranslate into reality during a 1961 peech http://en.ikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program#Background>.
The moment was stamped indelibly on the page of history and the word, Armstrong, turned out to be a household name for all generations to come.
I don't know how the Moon had felt the first soft touch of human footsteps on her surface or whether the planet Earth had forewarned her only satellite of bad days ahead if humans were allowed to walk and run free on the lunar urface! But I am sure, if the Earth could somehow whisper to the Moon, the lanet's advice to her satellite would have been: "Beware of humans; they are savages!"
Our Earth, the third planet from the Sun and home to millions of species, was formed about four and a half billion years ago. Of millions of species only humans' steps on this Earth are the heaviest, the cruelest and the loudest. All living species, except humans, give more to the Earth than take from her during their lifespan. Humans only take and are not content with what Earth can afford; now they are poised for outsourcing in the havens far away in the space leaving the Earth, bereft of her treasures, in the lurch.
Humans, more appropriately Homo sapiens or bipedal primates from the evolutionary point of view, have been walking on this Earth for about 250 thousand years with their highly developed brain capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection, and emotion compared to any other quadruped animals, flying birds, swimming fishes and visible or invisible living beings.
The Earth has since silently been tolerating humans' exploitation of her resources, though once in a while the Earth twitches and jerks her body when humans excessively flirt with the planet's cores. When thousands of dumb species are becoming extinct at rapid pace as victims of human oppression and subjugation, the ever-rising human population on Earth now stands at 6.7 billion.
Earth's only natural satellite, the Moon, began orbiting it about 4.53 billion years ago, that induces our ocean tides, stabilizes our planet's axial tilt and gradually slows our planet's rotational speed---all these phenomena vitally needed for our very existence.
The moon's magnificence agitated our scientists; they sent humans in spaceships to step onto her body and pry into what lay on and beneath her skin the way after being enamoured of a rose in the garden we pluck it off from its plant, imprison it into a vase, forcibly inhale its fragrance and mutilate its petals to our whims and caprices.
Nevertheless, as a motif in the visual and performing arts, poetry, prose and music the shining Moon while waxing and waning or while playing hide and seek behind patches of hanging clouds evoked romance in a man to serenade his fianc
The moment was stamped indelibly on the page of history and the word, Armstrong, turned out to be a household name for all generations to come.
I don't know how the Moon had felt the first soft touch of human footsteps on her surface or whether the planet Earth had forewarned her only satellite of bad days ahead if humans were allowed to walk and run free on the lunar urface! But I am sure, if the Earth could somehow whisper to the Moon, the lanet's advice to her satellite would have been: "Beware of humans; they are savages!"
Our Earth, the third planet from the Sun and home to millions of species, was formed about four and a half billion years ago. Of millions of species only humans' steps on this Earth are the heaviest, the cruelest and the loudest. All living species, except humans, give more to the Earth than take from her during their lifespan. Humans only take and are not content with what Earth can afford; now they are poised for outsourcing in the havens far away in the space leaving the Earth, bereft of her treasures, in the lurch.
Humans, more appropriately Homo sapiens or bipedal primates from the evolutionary point of view, have been walking on this Earth for about 250 thousand years with their highly developed brain capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection, and emotion compared to any other quadruped animals, flying birds, swimming fishes and visible or invisible living beings.
The Earth has since silently been tolerating humans' exploitation of her resources, though once in a while the Earth twitches and jerks her body when humans excessively flirt with the planet's cores. When thousands of dumb species are becoming extinct at rapid pace as victims of human oppression and subjugation, the ever-rising human population on Earth now stands at 6.7 billion.
Earth's only natural satellite, the Moon, began orbiting it about 4.53 billion years ago, that induces our ocean tides, stabilizes our planet's axial tilt and gradually slows our planet's rotational speed---all these phenomena vitally needed for our very existence.
The moon's magnificence agitated our scientists; they sent humans in spaceships to step onto her body and pry into what lay on and beneath her skin the way after being enamoured of a rose in the garden we pluck it off from its plant, imprison it into a vase, forcibly inhale its fragrance and mutilate its petals to our whims and caprices.
Nevertheless, as a motif in the visual and performing arts, poetry, prose and music the shining Moon while waxing and waning or while playing hide and seek behind patches of hanging clouds evoked romance in a man to serenade his fianc