Buzz Aldrin in front of the Apollo 11 lunar module

As any other human being interested in the fate of his kind, I watched the news regarding the celebration of 40 years since the Moon landing. But I couldn’t fail noticing that it really seems to be a PR campaign rather than a celebration. And I’ll try to explain why, because I find it very interesting. First, it’s a really interesting campaign, and then there’s this recession that somehow killed the hope and people need to recover.

Maybe it wasn’t perceived as a crisis, but the Cold War was indeed one. So people needed their expectations to be fullfilled. But how do you do that? Well, for showing off the supremacy of the United States of America, NASA sent people to the Moon. They say there were six Moon landings.

Meanwhile, technology evolved in such a way, they couldn’t imagine in those years. What was science fiction in the 1990′s, now it’s reality. Just think about the cheap touchscreen phones you use. Those were like 50 years away in the 1990′s, right? It was Star Trek, if you allow me the comparison. But despite the technological improvements, no other man walked on the Moon surface. Or at least we don’t know about that. Why?

I strongly believe that the 40 years celebration is just a great PR campaign for NASA. In the sixties, Americans needed something to believe in. Today, all the world needs something to believe in. Moon landing was and still is one of the greatest accomplishments of the human kind. Why not reuse it?

Talking about new videos and new audio recordings, publishing lots of new images, that’s all just PR campaign. Announcing that NASA is going to send another human to the Moon by 2020, that’s the actual news. It sends this message to the people: “Whatever recession we live in, it’s going to be better and it’s going to be soon. Look, have something new to believe in!”

Though it’s strange that in about 30 years no other human being walked the Moon, I wonder what the future stands for. Despite this huge NASA PR campaign, there really has to be something cool outhere. And the campaign is actually working. Though I was born too late to experience the enthuziasm of the people that witnessed the Moon landing, I’m really enthuziastic right now. And makes me feel like maybe the recession is not that far from ending.

I wonder if the US Government had something to do with this PR campaign.