Before I talk about flags, programmes and schedules, I want to look soberly at the place itself. The Moon is not a small planet. It is a body with one eightieth of Earth's mass and one sixth of its gravity, without air, without a magnetic field, without a water cycle and without weather of any kind. What passes for an atmosphere at its surface is a vacuum better than anything an earthly laboratory produces. The average distance is 384,400 kilometres, three days of flight, 1.3 seconds for a radio signal.