Moonwalk

The bitter rivalry between nations and races goes way back to civilization and technology. The debatable issues of which race or nation is more superior have similarly been the crux of many fierce wars, conquests and adventures. Till today, there are those that are still of the firm opinions that religion is a tactical weapon of diplomacy in achieving submissions when and where brutal force had failed. If the end of the world tarries, that will continue to be a subject of contention and attrition.

The cold war between the former USSR and USA did not start with the meddling of the former in the latter's last presidential elections. To understand the crux of their beef, we must endure a trip in the time machine. Apart from docile China, both countries shared between them one third of the liveable land on the planet, leaving the rest of us to squeeze into spaces left over by the sprawling seas.

Furtherance to their ambition of owing the planet in an unequal proportion, the world was forced to run their governance along capitalism and socialism ideals as dictated by the two superpowers. Of course, it was not always the best for the rest of the world in terms of stable government but guess who benefit from the chaos, coup and wars? There were just three sources of buying arms for the rest of the world to self destruct: The Russians, Americans and of course, the unreliable black market.

In the early 60s, the batlle for supremacy moved into space conquest while the rest of the world was left to grapple with everyday challenges. In 1969, the world watched with abated breath as the Americans landed men on the moon. It was a small step for a man but a giant leap for mankind according to Armstrong on his first step on the dusty moon soil. What was however left unsaid was the sarcasm of defeat left hanging over the Russians. With the phyric victory, the disintegration of the monolithic USSR was only a question of when.

Take a deep breath, and think about the state of technology in early 60s, if you were born. Wire landline rotary telephone was the rave and rare in most homes; there were no fax machine or scan facility. There were no chips for the computer, and as matter of fact what you have in your today's iphone 6 dwarfs the entire computer in Nigeria then. The automobile then was just a box on four wheels compared to today's self-acting cars. It was however during this period that America accomplished the followings:

They built a space craft sophisticated enough to take three men to lunar orbit, a second craft ejected from the command module and was able to land two man on the moon. They came out and did their expeditions without forgetting to plant the America flag 'swaying' on non-atmospheric conditions. And the same craft took off vertically from the moon surface and rejoined the orbiting craft in lunar and they all landed safely in the Pacific....all in 1969!

Since then, American space exploration and ambition has been limited to near orbit 324 mile voyages compared to the over 225,000 miles traveled in 1969 to the moon! Followers of this article should not begin to read meaning into this, after all the Russians meekly accepted defeat in spite of their superior technology then and moved on, but not to the moon.

We may have been colonised by these folks but it is time we start taking their stories with a pinch of salt. We may not be smart enough to start a space program but we are also not that dumb not to decipher between a staged moon landing in an arid Arizona and the real moon. Or we may be forced into start

telling our own tales by moonlight too.