Fly me to the Moon

Walking on the Moon

For

Everybody who went to the moon,

And everybody who helped them get there.

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Fly Me To The Moon is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any characters alive or dead is purely coincidental, apart from Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, who really did go to the moon whatever any of the conspiracy theorists might tell you.

David Wilson remembered the evening of the 20th July 1969 because it was the day of his birthday, his eleventh birthday. It was also when the Apollo Eleven lunar module, the Eagle, landed on the moon in the Sea of Tranquillity, which wasn't really a sea at all.

David had not wanted a party to celebrate his birthday because he wanted to watch the coverage of the moon landing on the television. He had blown out the candles on his cake whilst sitting watching any reporting of the event that he could find. His mother had made the cake, and on the top, she had iced a red rocket heading towards a lemon-yellow crescent moon. Her rendition had more in common with Dan Dare, The Mekon, and the Eagle comic than it did with Apollo and the lunar lander, but she could not have chosen a better theme for David. The week before, he had sat transfixed by a new American program on the television called Star Trek, and this week he got to watch the first step in the quest to change fantasy into reality.

Instructed to make a wish as he blew out the eleven candles (eleven for his birthday, or alternatively, eleven for Apollo), David wished that he was older, so that he could be the man who was going to walk on the moon before anybody else.

David's interest in NASA had started the year before when the American space program had launched Apollo Seven, after which he watched every launch that he could on the television, and listened to the radio coverage on the transistor radio in his bedroom as the Apollo program came ever closer to putting a man on the moon.

His mother had told him that he could watch the television for as long as he wanted to that night, or for as long as he could stay awake. On the BBC, he listened to Cliff Michelmore analysing the event with help from Patrick Moore and James Burke. He much preferred their more serious scientific approach as opposed to the more frivolous party atmosphere coverage on ITV. The BBC were also using the far superior music talents of David Bowie's Space Oddity (which he had bought two weeks earlier on the day of its release, the 11th July) and Pink Floyd's specially recorded Moonhead. All ITV had to offer were the likes of Cilla Black, which in David's opinion bore no comparison at all.

David already knew all the words to Space Oddity which he played continuously whilst singing along until his mother complained. Mothers are generally supportive, but she thought it necessary to point out that he couldn't sing in tune anyway. He wanted to be Major Tom, or just as unrealistically, Neil Armstrong.

Part of David was excited that man was going to walk on the moon, whilst at the same time, part of him wanted the landing craft to develop a fault and have to leave before they got around to opening the door. It wasn't that he wanted anything unpleasant to happen to the astronauts, he just wanted them to have to leave so that he, David Wilson, could go there at a later date, and be the first man to set foot on the moon.