Onthemoon

I read this article about the first moon landing and decided to do some art to bring awareness to these facts.

For those who don’t know, there’s a fascinating story surrounding Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin’s “secretive” activities in space. The second man to walk on the moon, Aldrin is also the first — and only known — individual to take Holy Communion.

“I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon the wine curled slowly and gracefully up the side of the cup,” Aldrin told Guideposts Magazine in 1970. “It was interesting to think that the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the first food eaten there, were communion elements.” -Buzz Aldrin

NASA apparently decided not to allow Aldrin to showcase the sacrament, as Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the now-deceased founder of American Atheists, threatened to sue the U.S. government over a previous religious broadcast that apparently unfolded on Apollo 8, a separate vessel (Aldrin was on Apollo 11 for his moon mission).

After the Apollo 8 crew had read out the Genesis creation account in orbit, O’Hair wanted a ban on Nasa astronauts practising religion on earth, in space or “around and about the moon” while on duty. She believed it violated the constitutional separation between church and state.

While Americans didn’t hear the communion live as Aldrin had originally hoped, those at the Houston Space Center Mission Control were invited to join him in giving thanks as he read a section from the Book of John.

“I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me,” the astronaut read from a written card (John 15:5).