The Moon

The Moon has been the subject of many works of art and literature and the inspiration for countless others. It is a motif in the visual arts, the performing arts, poetry, prose and music. A 5000-year-old rock carving at Knowth, Ireland may represent the Moon, which would be the earliest depiction discovered. In many prehistoric and ancient cultures, the Moon was thought to be a deity or other supernatural phenomenon, and astrological views of the Moon continue to be propagated today.

The Moon is Earth’s only natural satellite and the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System. The Moon is the only celestial body on which human beings have made a manned landing. While the Soviet Union’s Luna programme was the first to reach the Moon with unmanned spacecraft, the United States’ NASA Apollo program achieved the only manned missions to date, beginning with the first manned lunar mission by Apollo 8 in 1968, and six manned lunar landings between 1969 and 1972–the first being Apollo 11 in 1969. Human exploration of the Moon temporarily ceased with the conclusion of the Apollo program, although a few robotic landers and orbiters have been sent to the Moon since that time.

The documentary  looks at Earth’s moon and the moons of other planets , such as Jupiter’s Titan and ice covered Europa, which scientists think is the next best bet for life within our Solar System. It ends with NASA’s future plans to build a habitat on the moon.