Bright side of the moon

Present Tense: At the beginning of the week a spaceship about the size of an average washing machine thumped into the surface of the moon at a speed that would make an average washing machine fill its trousers with fabric conditioner.

Smart-1 was the European Space Agency's first mission to our rocky companion, and met its glorious end in the haughtily named Sea of Excellence. Yet, almost 40 years since the Americans put a man on the moon, it begs the question of how it is that the combined expertise of 21st-century Europe can do no better than crash something into it. As small steps for mankind go, it might appear somewhat backward. Like slapping the video recorder a bit before figuring how to properly use it. Then deciding that you'd just prefer to slap it.

As it happens, it's not an easy task to put anything on the moon. It's pretty tough to get anything into space at all. In an age in which it's become commonplace to hear about brave little spacecraft travelling millions of miles simply to get clobbered by a comet, it's worth remembering that space travel is still in its infancy. If it was within reach of most rich nations, surely Gay Mitchell would already have suggested that the Irish build a moon base.

Nevertheless, the moon has once again become an object of attraction. Japan and China both have plans to put astronauts there by around 2020. Europe will resume smacking into the moon in 2008, with Italy and Germany also developing independent programmes. India also plans a moon mission for 2008. That half of India's children are undernourished, and it has a higher infant mortality rate than Bangladesh, has not dissuaded it from grabbing $100 million and flinging it at the sky.

Most of the missions have a scientific rationale. The moon may be the most observed object in the solar system, but we still don't know where it came from. The most popular theory is that it's a chunk of rock flung into space when the Earth got overly-intimate with a body the size of Mars, but we don't know for sure.

But it's largely about the prestige to be gained in going to find out. After 40 years of being relatively ignored, a dull little spot humanity had "done" and got bored with, it is re-establishing itself as a fashionable place to visit. It is, if you like, the Baltic resort of the solar system.

The Americans are planning to send astronauts back there too, although George Bush's pronouncement that they'll be there by 2020 is looking increasingly unlikely. The budgetary and technical constraints are enormous, and it's not as if they can simply rebuild the original Saturn V rocket on which the Apollo astronauts first hitched a ride. It is an urban myth that Nasa lost all copies of the blueprints in an office move, but even if they found them it's tough to find a factory making 1960s rocket parts. And besides, Nasa did lose the instruction manual. Just as they've misplaced the original film footage of the first moon landing. It's lost so much, in fact, that it has employed archival detectives to rummage around the files, perhaps under potplants and sofas, in search of everything.

Anyway, with three countries now planning to go to the moon at the same time, you wonder if it would be worth their while looking for a group booking and sharing a ride. When the astronauts step out almost 50 years after the last man left it, they'll find a few relics of the original race. There is a handful of American flags, lunar landing platforms, three golf balls sliced by astronaut Alan Sheperd, and moon buggies with only a few dozen miles on the clock and only one previous but not so careful owner.

They'll also come across the pulverised remains of a couple of washing machine-sized spacecraft. Knowing the propensity of the Irish to dump things in even the most remote and picturesque of spots, we can't rule out the possibility that in 2020 astronauts will find a couple of actual washing machines.

But by then, perhaps there will be a new generation thrilling to the lunar adventure, unburdened by cynicism, ennui and a nagging doubt that men ever landed on the moon at all. Andrew Smith's fine book Moondust, in which he tracks down the nine surviving moonwalkers, features a telling encounter at a science fiction convention. Smith sees a queue snaking away from a table at which sits the star of some hackneyed space drama. Nearby, untroubled by the throngs of sci-fi geeks, is seated Richard Gordon.

An astronaut with Apollo 12, the second mission to the moon, he had stayed behind in the command module, pretty much the loneliest man in the solar system while his two colleagues went for a bounce on the surface.

A timid young man eventually approaches the table and asks, "Did you actually walk on the moon?"

No, replies Gordon, and starts to explain how he stayed in orbit. "Oh," interrupts the man, and wanders off to find a pretend astronaut he can get excited about.