text: The aperture hissed shut behind him. The grey expanse ahead yawned ominously. It was not, perhaps, the most appealing of views, but it was one that he had been waiting to see for a long time. He had always wanted to be standing at this very spot, at this very moment. Since his earliest memories, he had been building his way to this moment. As a child, he stared into the inky black sky above his home, night after night, his eyes seeking for a glimpse of the Moon. Whether a radiant white orb lighting the night, or a mere sliver of light in the dark, he could sit and stare for hours. But it was not the part that you could see that fascinated him. No, it was not the cheerful white face of the man in the moon that captured his attention, night after night. It was the man’s twin, lurking in the shadow of his bright brother, hidden from the sight of the Earth. He took a hesitant step on to the highest rung of the ladder attached to the lander. He was still a young man when the first images of the dark side of the Moon were published by the Russian Academy of Sciences, in 1960. Photographed from orbit, it was the first glimpse humankind had had of the far side of the Earth’s companion. Some years later, the astronauts of Apollo 8 had been the first humans to look on the area from orbit with their naked eyes. He had pored over the photographs. They called to him, a tantalizing glimpse at a totally unknown region, invisible for all of human history up to this point. He took a second step, to the next rung of the ladder. He very nearly hadn’t been here. He had lobbied hard to be on the mission, and for his landing site to be here, on the far side of the Moon. NASA had been reluctant. Added risk, they said, for no real gain. Added cost. They had wanted him to remain on Earth, observing remotely, and they had wanted the landing to be near the first landing site, on the Earth side of the moon. But that would not have been enough. He took a third step, to the last rung of the ladder. There were many reasons to explore the far side of the Moon. It was geologically very different to the near side. Where one was a tapestry of smooth basaltic lava formations, the far side was riddled with hundreds of tiny impact craters, rugged and battered by celestial impacts. None of that had been very important to him, however. All of that could be measured from automated satellites and rovers. No, his reason for wanting to explore the dark side of the Moon was far more personal. He took a final step, releasing his grip on the lander and landing on the Moon with a soft thud, touching boots to lunar soil for the first time. Nothing should stay hidden forever. That was his drive. His calling. That was why he had built his entire life to this point, his endless arguments for the mission to this location. Photographs from orbit were one thing. Automatons exploring the Moon were another. But there was no match for human feet treading unknown land. You could not know the truth of a place until you walked its shores. He took a hesitant step forward. He was starting to feel it now. His strength was fading, and he was not finished yet. He willed himself to continue. An old man can’t be an astronaut, they had said. And it had been difficult. The physical ordeal of merely getting to this point had been debilitating. The mental strain of constantly being afraid, at any moment, that he was going to fail, and it would all have been for nothing. He took another step forward. He felt better, momentarily. He wasn’t an old man here. Now he was just a child again, staring up at the moon, wondering what lay hidden from view. This was what it had all been for. This moment. He stopped walking, and, with some difficulty in the bulky space suit, he lay down. The light gravity made it easier not to fall. He reached up to his helmet with shaking fingers. Some men were buried. Some men were cremated. He released his helmet seal.