Day 5 To the moon

T he moon, methinks, looks with a wat'ry eye; And when she weeps, weeps every little flower; --William Shakesphere

The Crescent-Moon, The Star of Love

by Wordsworth, William (1842)

The Crescent-moon, the Star of Love,
Glories of evening, as ye there are seen
With but a span of sky between--
Speak one of you, my doubts remove,
Which is the attendant Page and which the Queen?

"Who But Is Pleased To Watch
The Moon On High"

by Wordsworth, William (1846)

Who but is pleased to watch the moon on high
Travelling where she from time to time enshrouds
Her head, and nothing loth her Majesty
Renounces, till among the scattered clouds
One with its kindling edge declares that soon
Will reappear before the uplifted eye
A Form as bright, as beautiful a moon,
To glide in open prospect through clear sky.
Pity that such a promise e'er should prove
False in the issue, that yon seeming space
Of sky should be in truth the stedfast face
Of a cloud flat and dense, through which must move
(By transit not unlike man's frequent doom)
The Wanderer lost in more determined gloom.

Day 4 To the Moon

Did ye know...Scottish-Americans were the first humans in space?

McDonnel built the Mercury and Gemini space capsules. In 1961

Alan Shepherd was the first American in Space. In 1962 John Glann became the first American

to orbit the Earth. In '84 Bruce McCandless II became the first human sattelite by being

the first man to fly free in Space....coooool!

In 1969 Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, also of Scottish descent landed on the moon,

Armstrong wore his kilt in the parade at his ancestral hometown of Langholm, Scotland

Other Scottish-American men to walk the moon were Alan Bean, Shepherd, David Scott 

and James Irwin--who was the first to drive on the moon

Scottish band Silencers with Painted Moon

The Waterboys a predominately Scottish band hailing from Edinburgh 

with the song 

The Whole of the Moon

Day 3 To the Moon

A Moon Poem

by Edgar Allen Poe

I saw thee once- once only- years ago: I must not say how many- but not many. It was a July midnight; and from out A full-orbed moon, that like thine own soul soaring, Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven, There fell a silvery silken veil of light, With quietude, and sultriness and slumber, Upon the upturn'd faces of a thousand Roses that grew in an enchanted garden, Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe- Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses That gave out, in return for the love- light, Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death- Fell on the upturned faces of these roses That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted by thee, and by the poetry of thy presence. Clad all in white, upon a violet bank I saw thee half-reclining; while the moon Fell on the upturn'd faces of the roses, And on thine own, upturn'd- alas, in sorrow! Was it not Fate, that, on this July mid- night- Was it not Fate (whose name is also Sorrow), That bade me pause before that garden- gate, To breathe the incense of those slum- bering roses? No footstep stirred: the hated world all slept, Save only thee and me. I paused- I looked- And in an instant all things disap- peared. (Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!) The pearly lustre of the moon went out: The mossy banks and the meandering paths, The happy flowers and the repining trees, Were seen no more: the very roses' odours Died in the arms of the adoring airs. All- all expired save thee- save less than thou: Save only the devine light in thine eyes. I saw but them- they were the world to me. I saw but them- saw only them for hours- Saw only them till the moon went down. What wild heart-histories seemed to lie enwritten Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres! How dark a woe! yet how sublime a hope! How silently serene a sea of pride! How adoring an ambition! yet how deep- How fathomless a capacity for love! But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight, Into the western couch of a thunder-cloud; And thou, a ghost, amid entombing trees Didst glide away. only thine eyes Remained. They would not go- they never yet have gone. Lighting my lonely pathway home that night, They have not left me (as my hopes have) since. They follow me- they lead me through the years. They are my ministers- yet I their slave. Their office is to illuminate and enkindle- My duty, to be saved by their bright light And purified in their electric fire, And sanctified in their elysian fire. They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope.) And are far up in Heaven- the stars I kneel to In the sad, slient watches of my night; While even in the meridian glare of day I see them still- two sweetly scintillant Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!

Day 2 To the moon

Hey diddle diddle,The cat and the fiddle, The cow jumped over the moon; The little dog laughed to see such sport, And the dish ran away with the spoon.

Day 1 To the Moon,Alice Straight to the Moon!

Upon this new year NASA has begun a new adventure....or possibly revisiting an old one. Mission to the Moon 

The cruise to the moon took 3 1/2 months and covered 2.5 million miles...alot longer than the Apollo back in 1969, which was a mere 3 days. Over the New Years weekend a pair of NASA spacecraft arrived back to back to their destinations in the first mission devoted to studying lunar gravity.

The moon and it's phases fascinate me, I find it beautiful. On New Years Eve spaceship "Grail-A" flew over the south pole, fired it's engine and dropped into lunar orbit, while it's twin "Grail-B" did the same the following day. Data collection will not begin until March and the trip is slated to end in June.