Last night (and a few minutes ago too, from home) I was on the field with a friend and at the moment we stopped the car and started unloading our telescopes and PC, we noticed a reddish horn appearing at the horizon: the Moon!
Its last quarter, a beautiful (and unusual) phase rising with clouds sometimes in the way.

Then something crossed my mind: any living being capable of seing things through air, has seen the Moon, over and over throughout the history of life on Earth.
And ourselves, we are limited with the 8 km radius horizon around us, but not with the Moon, 385,000 km away and always back!
We see a tiny fraction of mankind during our lifetime, but the Moon always is part of our life.
I remember a full Moon reflected on the sea while our boat was parked in a creek near one of the Aeolian Islands north of Sicily. I remember the Moon shining on one side of the Grand Canyon at 03:00 AM, some time later.
The Moon means something to all of us on Earth, whether for scientific, romantic, mystic, artistic or contemplative reasons.
True enough, it's mainly dust and it's dull, deadly, airless, colorless and very dangerous.
But it's right there, not too far and it used to be a magnet for our scientists, technicians and politicians.

Venus was called that way because it shines in the sky but in reality, it is hell.
Mars was called that way because it has iron just like our blood.
We thought there were colors evoking seasons and even canals.
But we discovered its atmosphere is too thin for water to be liquid, it has craters like our Moon and it also would require a spacesuit just like our Moon.
But we could indeed explore it and it's tempting as no human has ever been there.

But Mars is nothing but a bright point of light in the sky, for 4 months out of 26, similar to all the other points of light. Mars is only relevant to scientists and those interested in space.

The Moon is relevant to many many more humans. The Moon is a world easily spotted through the simplest binoculars and even with the naked eye.

I know, Mars has perhaps traces of life and certainly has raw material humans can use.
The Moon is rather poor in usable raw materials, but humans are rich in imagination and in finding ways to study the Moon, or use it for our well being.
There still is a huge potential of discoveries in our neighbouring celestial body.

Raoul