Many moons ago – 50th Anniversary of the moon landing

50th Anniversary of the moon landing

What started out as mere fiction in the early 20^th century became reality 50 years ago and to this day is one of the biggest achievements of mankind: Apollo 11, the first successful crewed moon landing on the 20^th of July 1969.

The following (earth) day at 3am UTC, just 7 hours later, the first human set foot on the moon. Neil Armstrong was his name and his famous expression “one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind” was said while exiting the spacecraft and is worldwide one of the best-known sayings. The landing was broadcast on live TV and Armstrong’s famous line was later quoted in many newspapers and therefore translated into numerous languages.

But what once divided the world into two opposing parties during the cold war period, when both Russia and the US competed against one another to win the space race, is now a combined, international effort without borders. The US and Russia figured out that it was much more effective to work together instead of against each other. That’s why they launched the International Space Station (ISS) in 1998, together with space programs from other nations, namely Japan, the European Union and Canada.

With Expedition 60 there are currently three astronauts of different nationalities living and working on the ISS with three more to launch tomorrow (20th July 2019) as part of Expedition 60-61. We wish the best of luck and success to them on their difficult journey.

But when working and living together with colleagues of different nationalities for five or more months, full time in an isolated and limited space, good communication is key. That’s why it’s so important for them to speak the same language, literally and figuratively. Of course English is the common lingua franca, as it is on earth, but “Runglish”, a makeshift mixture of Russian and English, was established to facilitate communication between crew members as well.

If you need any help with translations into and from English or Russian, we can help you with that! We can’t help you with interstellar communication though, sorry!