National Geographic UK - 07 2019

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07.2019
The Moon and Beyond

A NEW ERA OF SPACE TRAVEL IS HERE
“The moon is the proving

ground; Mars is the
horizon goal.”
JIM BRIDENSTINE
N A S A A D M I N I S T R AT O R
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THE FIRST WATCH

WORN ON THE MOON
On the 50th anniversary of the first

lunar landing, OMEGA is reflecting
on the golden moments that defined
that iconic day. Nobody remembers
it quite like Buzz Aldrin, who wore
an OMEGA Speedmaster when he
stepped onto the dusty surface and
left his footprints in history.
#MOONWATCH
Exclusively at OMEGA Flagship Boutiques

and selected retailers worldwide
FURTHER J U LY 2 0 1 9
On the Cover
C O N T E N T S Astronaut William Anders
took the image now
known as “Earthrise”
during the Apollo 8 lunar
orbit mission. A duplicate
of Anders’s film is stored
at Houston’s Johnson
Space Center, where this
frame was photographed.
DAN WINTERS
17
P R O O F E M B A R K E X P L O R E
THE BIG IDEA
Let’s Send Only

Women to Space
If females have the
right stuff for long
space voyages, why
send men at all?
BY N A D I A D R A K E
34
8
GETTING THERE
A Salty Sea Island

Studying one spot in
the Dead Sea involved
flying a drone and
taking a briny swim.
BY N I N A ST RO C H L I C
DECODER
PLANET OR PLASTIC?
New Places to Go
Straw Poll Inventive prototypes
Spirit Worlds To take plastic drinking of toilets might lead
What remains in a glass straws out of the waste to low-cost, sanitary
of single malt Scotch stream, consider metal, facilities that can work
whisky after the liquid silicone—even bamboo. around the world.
is gone? A surreal col- BY SA R A H G I B B E N S BY M A N U E L C A N A L E S
lection of otherworldly
landscapes—if you ALSO ALSO
know how to look. What Makes Words Funny A Legend’s Boots

P H OTO G R A P H S BY Dandelion in Flight Octopus Odd Couple
E R N I E B U T TO N Sleep’s Repairs The Night of Fireflies
F E AT U R E S How Humans Got Protecting the Sea at Desperate Niger

to the Moon … the End of the World The West African
Space prowess was built National Geographic’s nation is at risk
over time: the crews, Pristine Seas project from the chaos
the hardware, the goals. has helped establish that surrounds it.
B Y N A D I A D R A K E . . . . . . . P. 44 marine reserves to pro- BY RO B E RT D R A P E R
tect more than two P H OTO G RA P H S BY
… and What’s Next million square miles PA S C A L M A I T R E
Today’s space race of oceans. The project ..................................... P. 110
is multinational, recently laid scientific
moneyed, and ever groundwork for a new The Mangrove Wall
more crowded. What marine park off Argen- How climate change
will its winners get? tina, with private and hits this natural defense.
BY SA M H OW E V E R H OV E K government support. BY P E T E R S C H WA RT Z S T E I N
P H OTO G R A P H S ( B OT H P H OTO G RA P H S A N D P H OTO G RA P H S BY
STO R I E S ) BY DA N W I N T E R S S TO RY B Y E N R I C S A L A A R K O D AT T O
...................................... P. 80 ...................................... P. 96 ..................................... P. 136
| I N S P I R E D B Y N AT U R E
What is the best way to challenge the snow-capped mountains, to meadows
creativity of some of the world’s most LiìVi`ÜÌÜ`yÜiÀÃ]Ì>ViÌ
talented photographers - while at the same deserts, to warm tropical waters.
time pushing a new smartphone to the
And so they fanned out from coast to coast:
limits of its design specs?
the iconic American west for Australian
The answer is to give three of these Krystle Wright, the wonders of California
individuals a OnePlus 7 Pro and unleash for Andy Bardon and the Sunshine State for
them in numerous locales across the United Florida native Carlton Ward Jr.
States so they can immortalize the theme –
All of the photographers succeeded in
Inspired by Nature.
capturing the distilled essence of America’s
Their brief was simple: to capture as much geographical diversity and the delicate balance
of the rugged natural beauty of a rich and between the natural and human environment.
unimaginably diverse continent – and how
Look out for the stunning 40-page
people interact with it - as they could in
magazine available with the July edition
seven days.
of National Geographic magazine.
With their creativity and imaginations
unleashed they journeyed forth to tell
the stories of their chosen regions.
Their treks ranged from cloud and This content was produced in partnership with OnePlus.
Left: An aerial perspective of a coastal environment on the Northern California Coast. Photo credit Andy Bardon.
Above: Exposed mangrove roots in Biscayne Bay, Florida. Photo credit Carlton Ward Jr. All #ShotonOnePlus
J U LY | W H AT ’ S C OM I N G
BOOKS
Experience
The Mindful Day
Meditation expert
Laurie Cameron offers
practical advice on
integrating mindful-
ness into busy lives.
The Mindful Day,
now in paperback, is
available wherever
books are sold and at
shopng.com/books.
TELEVISION
A return visit to
Yellowstone Live
This four-night event
follows cinematogra-
phers in real time as
they explore an iconic
American wilderness
and showcase its den-
izens. Season two of
Yellowstone Live will
air June 23-26 at 9/8c,
on Nat Geo WILD and
National Geographic.
Apollo: Missions to the

NAT NAT GEO WILD
GEO Howie Mandel hosts

FILMS
Moon takes viewers along wacky animal series
Take some of the fun-
To mark the 50th anniversary of the first crewed lunar niest animal videos on
landing, National Geographic brings NASA’s Apollo Instagram, add a vet-
space program to life with the two-hour documentary eran comic to narrate—
Apollo: Missions to the Moon. The film combines and you’ve got season
archival TV footage, never before heard radio broad- two of Howie Mandel’s
Animals Doing Things.
casts, home movies, NASA film, and Mission Control
Episodes air Saturday
audio to create a riveting, you-are-there experience. nights at 9 and 9:30
Kicking off a multi-night television event, Apollo starting June 15 on
will air at 9/8c on July 7 on National Geographic. Nat Geo WILD.
Subscriptions For subscriptions or changes of address, contact Customer Service at ngmservice.com Contributions to the National Geographic Society are tax de-
or call 1-800-647-5463. Outside the U.S. or Canada call +1-515-237-3674. We occasionally make ductible under Section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. tax code. | Copyright
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PHOTO: NASA
You were
born
to
explore
the
universe.
The stars and planets called out to us to

touch the limits of our galaxy. 50 years ago
we answered that call for the first time.
Astronauts walked on the moon and when they
returned we invented cell phones, cable TV,
solar cells, wireless headphones, 3D printing…
What will we invent when astronauts return
from Mars?
There’s only one way to find out.

We’re going back to space.
The Red Planet is waiting for us but we all must

work together. We need astronauts to fly, but
we need engineers to build. We need roboticists
to program the rovers, and we need everyone…
We need you, to share your love of space with
others. What will your role be?
The greatest gift each generation leaves the

next are the mysteries they were unable to
solve because we will find the answers. It’s our
time – as people, as countries, as a PLANET,
to fling ourselves into the greatest adventure
humanity has ever known.
# LEGOletsgo
LEGO and the LEGO logo are trademarks of the
LEGO Group. ©2019 The LEGO Group.
111601
J U LY | FROM THE EDITOR
PRISTINE SEAS
Preserving Earth’s
Undersea Treasures
BY SUSAN GOLDBERG PHOTOGRAPH BY REBECCA HALE
ENRIC SALA has made it his mission to

save wildlife and habitat. In the past
10 years alone, thanks to his efforts
and partnerships with governments
around the world, an area half the size
of Canada has been protected from all
manner of human exploitation.
The reserves that marine ecologist
Sala has helped establish aren’t on land
but in the oceans. His Pristine Seas
project, sponsored by the National Geo-
graphic Society, has been instrumental
in getting more than two million square
miles set aside—keeping untouched
wild areas healthy and giving depleted
ones a chance to recover.
Sala’s article this month recounts
how Pristine Seas lent support to the
creation of a protected marine park at
the tip of Argentina. It’s next to waters
that Chile designated as a park, and
Sala believes it’s the largest contigu-
ous transboundary protected ocean
area in the world. Yet it’s not nearly
enough. “Five percent of the ocean is
protected,” he told me during a recent
visit. “Science says half the ocean must
be protected to make a real difference.”
Of all the reserves he’s worked on, I
asked Sala, which one does he like the
In 2018 National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Enric Sala led best? “That’s like asking which of your
a Pristine Seas diving expedition at Tierra del Fuego, Argentina.
sons or daughters you love the most,”
The expedition’s research laid the scientific groundwork for setting
aside a protected marine park there. he complained. But, he conceded,
“there is one place: the Southern Line
Islands, the most pristine archipelago
in the Pacific. There, in 2016, we saw
the greatest El Niño year ever, and half
the corals bleached and died.”
‘FIVE PERCENT OF THE His team’s going back this year to see
O CEAN IS PROTECTED. if the area has recovered. If it has, he
SCIENCE SAYS HALF says, “it will give us hope”—an essential
commodity as Sala and his collabora-
THE OCEAN MUST BE
tors press on to protect more ocean life.
PROTECTED TO MAKE
Thank you for reading National
A R E A L D I F F E R E N C E .’ Geographic. j
GREET THE WORLD’S WONDERS

T R AV E L W I T H N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
Machu Picchu, the Great Barrier Reef, Cape Town, the northern E X P L O R AT I O N H A P P E N S
lights: whichever wonder calls you, National Geographic can get B E C A U S E O F YO U
you there—and give you a close-up view. Our private expeditions When you travel with us, you help
further the work of our scientists,
are for just you and the travelling companions you choose, so you explorers, and educators around
can experience incredible places, exploring with private guides the world. Every year, we distribute
and enjoying the freedom to tailor your trip to your own interests. a portion of our proceeds to the
National Geographic Society,
creating more opportunities to work
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P R O O F
N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
VO L . 2 3 6 N O. 1
SPIRIT
WORLDS
LO O K I N G PHOTOGRAPHS BY
AT T H E ERNIE BUTTON
E A RT H
F ROM What remains in a glass of Scotch
E V E RY whisky after the liquid is gone?
POSSIBLE A potential collection of
ANGLE otherworldly landscapes.
8 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
Scotch whisky can

leave sediment
behind in a glass. Using
colored lights and pho-
to-editing software,
photographer Ernie
Button turned Macallan
Scotch dregs into this
planetary pretender.
J U LY 2 0 1 9 9
P R O O F
Residue from the barrels in which distillates were aged forms lavalike waves in a glass that held Glenlivet
Scotch. Button created different effects with tools including colored lights and editing software.
Button shot sediment from Balvenie, Macallan, Macallan, and Glenfiddich whiskies (clockwise from top
left). Then, using Photoshop, he shaped some images to resemble celestial bodies.
J U LY 2 0 1 9 11
P R O O F
Particulate forms a blossom-like vortex in a glass that held Macallan, a single malt Scotch whisky pro-
duced according to strict regulations in Scotland. (Whiskey spelled with an e is produced elsewhere.)
Button photographs sediment patterns that appear naturally. His creativity comes out in the lighting,
which can make remnants of Macallan (top) or Glenfiddich appear nebulous or richly metallic.
J U LY 2 0 1 9 13
P R O O F
THE BACK STORY

T H E D R EG S O F A F I N I S H E D G L A S S O F S C OTC H W H I S KY
CAN YIELD WILD CELESTIAL SCENES.
WA S H I N G D I S H E S —the most ordinary and swirls spring to life and make the
of chores—led photographer Ernie rich designs resemble colorful land-
Button on a decadelong discovery of scapes of planets and moons. “I think
a fantasy universe. While placing an of it as drinks and a show,” he says.
empty whisky glass in the dishwasher, Through trial and error, Button found
he noticed at the bottom a thin residue that only Scotch whiskies accumu-
of evaporated alcohol—specifically, late enough sediment. The oldest he’s
Scotch, the term for a whisky aged photographed is a 25-year-old whisky.
more than three years in oak barrels (Verdict: no big difference.)
in Scotland. When the last drops of In contrast to photographers who
alcohol dried up, they left sediment shoot epic scenes in exotic locales, But-
from the whisky’s distillates. Button ton looks inward and stays local. Before
took the glass to his studio, laid it on photographing spirits, he created land-
its side, and took pictures. scapes with breakfast cereal boxes
The whisky-sediment patterns are and chronicled the disappearance of
like snowflakes; each has a unique coin-operated rides at grocery stores.
design. They all, however, are light Button’s work proves there are wild
gray until Button lights them with things to be observed in everyday life,
multicolored lamps. The gray lines even in dirty dishes. — DA N I E L S TO N E
“You just have to look closely” at the bottom of a whisky glass, says photographer Ernie Button.
IN THIS SECTION
Straw Substitutes
E M B A R K High-Tech Health Help

Why Words Are Funny
Flight of the Dandelion
T H E D I S C O V E R I E S O F T O D AY T H AT W I L L D E F I N E T H E W O R L D O F T O M O R R O W
N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C VO L . 2 3 6 N O. 1
Let’s Send Only

Women to Space
P H Y S I C A L LY A N D P S Y C H O L O G I C A L LY, F E M A L E S H AV E T H E R I G H T S T U F F
F O R L E N G T H Y M I S S I O N S I N S P A C E . S O W H Y S E N D M A L E S AT A L L ?
I
BY NADIA DRAKE
for an interplanetary space

I F YO U ’ R E PAC K I N G
mission—one that’s very long and might involve
populating a faraway world—sending an all-female
astronaut crew could be an intelligent choice.
Before you raise an eyebrow at the prospect,
remember that NASA recruited and flew only all-
male crews for decades. In fact, in the 58 years that
Earthlings have launched humans into orbit, about 11
percent of them—63 individuals—have been women.
“An all-female mission tends to be something that
NASA has avoided in assignments because it seems
like a stunt,” says Margaret Weitekamp, a curator at
the National Air and Space Museum. But in some
ways, women are potentially better suited for space
travel than men.
Let’s focus on four factors. Women are generally
smaller. Women suffer less from some problematic
physical effects of spaceflight. Women have some per-
sonality traits more innately suited for long-duration
J U LY 2 0 1 9 17
E M B A R K | THE BIG IDEA
IF YOU’RE AIMING FOR MARS—

OR THE STARS!—THE CONTRAST
BETWEEN SENDING ENOUGH
FOOD FOR A LARGE MAN
VERSUS A SMALL WOMAN COULD
END UP BEING SUBSTANTIAL .
missions. And last but hardly least: Populating

another world requires reproduction, and so far that
isn’t possible without biological women, whereas
men’s contributions can be ... well, more on that later.
Sending lighter
F I R S T, T H E W E I G H T A D VA N TA G E .
humans into space is just plain smart because rocket-
ing weight into space, and maneuvering once you’re Gender, sex,
there, requires fuel, which costs money. “Some of us and space
have speculated for years that having an all-female
crew—or at least a crew of smaller individuals— For this discussion of
would be advantageous from the total-mission-weight who is sent into space,
standpoint,” says Wayne Hale, former NASA engineer let’s define our terms
and space shuttle program manager. as NASA did. In a
Sending six smaller women into space for months research report titled
or years could be significantly less expensive than “The Impact of Sex
sending six burly dudes, and lower body weights are and Gender on Adap-
just a small part of it. The rest of the difference comes tation to Space,” sex
from the amount of food, oxygen, and other resources was defined as “the
needed to keep smaller humans alive. For a short-du- classification of male
ration trip, the difference might be negligible. But if or female according
you’re aiming for Mars—or the stars!—the contrast to an individual’s
between sending enough food for a large man ver- genetics.” Gender was
sus a small woman could end up being substantial defined as “a person’s
because, on average, men require 15 to 25 percent self-representation as
more calories a day than women. male or female based
It’s a difference that Kate Greene observed in 2013 upon social interac-
while participating in a four-month-long simulated tions.” So far, when
mission in a Mars habitat. Part of Greene’s assign- NASA has sent individ-
ment was to monitor the metabolic output of her uals into space, it has
crewmates—and on average, she reported, females identified their sex,
expended less than half the calories of their male made no reference
counterparts, despite similar activity levels. to their gender
On top of that, smaller people produce less waste self-representation,
(think carbon dioxide and other bodily excretions), and steered clear of
which translates to lower demands on spacecraft the related matter
systems designed to recycle and remove that junk. of sexual orientation—
So why not simply launch a crew of small humans, that is, which sex(es)
sexes be damned? Because human bodies respond an individual finds
differently to spaceflight, and though the data are attractive. — N D
relatively sparse—again, women haven’t flown much
in space—it does seem that women’s bodies may
have a slight edge in tolerating spaceflight’s effects.
magnetic shield, expo-

A B OV E E A RT H ’ S P ROT E C T I V E
sure to damaging radiation occurs more quickly,
causing an increased risk of cancer and other
issues. Also, funky things happen in micrograv-
ity, where neither cells nor entire bodies can sense
ILLUSTRATION: MALIKA FAVRE J U LY 2 0 1 9 19

E M B A R K | THE BIG IDEA
that men tend to excel in shorter-term, goal-oriented

MEN TEND TO EXCEL IN situations, while women are better in longer-term,
habitation-type circumstances.
SHORTER-TERM, GOAL-
“People in habitation situations have to be more
ORIENTED SIT UATIONS, WHILE interpersonally sensitive. You have to notice, be
WOMEN ARE BETTER IN more communicative,” says Sheryl Bishop, a Uni-
LONGER-TERM, HABITATION- versity of Texas Medical Branch psychologist who
T YPE CIRCUMSTANCES. specializes in studying group behavior. “Women
are acculturated to have a lot of those skills to begin
with.” That doesn’t mean men can’t get along well
on long-duration space missions; it just means that
which direction is up or down. Fluids shift, immune the traits crucial for success on those missions are
responses decline, a handful of genes substantially more typically associated with women.
change their expression patterns, and, problemati-
cally, eyesight enigmatically deteriorates. that may be the least
F I N A L LY, T H E R E ’ S T H E I S S U E
Since the earliest days of the Mercury program, immediate and most provocative: populating a far-
NASA has been gleaning medical data from its astro- away planet. You could send a crew of three women
nauts by studying their physiological responses to and three men, and tell them to go have fun and make
spaceflight. In 2014 the space agency released a large more humans. But again, looking at costs: Why send
report compiled from decades of data. “It’s only been men when you can send just their contributions to
recently that we’ve had multiple women flying on the next generation, collected and cryopreserved in
missions,” so the findings on sex-based disparities are tiny vials? Sending an all-female crew and a sperm
preliminary, says Virginia Wotring of the Center for bank lets a space program economize while also
Space Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. Men increasing the genetic diversity of the parental pool.
seem to be less affected by space motion sickness but Let’s review. In terms of value per pound, tolerance
quicker to experience diminished hearing. Women of physical effects, psychosocial skills, and ability
appear to have a higher incidence of urinary tract to bear astro-babies, women seem well suited to
infections (an issue not unique to spaceflight, as any lengthy space voyages. Does this mean, conversely,
woman will tell you). that there’s no reason to send men on these missions?
More significantly, men tend to have problems Not quite. Data on group dynamics suggest that in
with deteriorating vision, which women don’t expe- team endeavors, mixed-gender teams are the most
rience as often or as severely. NASA astronaut Scott successful overall. We can specify why females would
Kelly—who has spent a cumulative 520 days in space do well on long-term space adventures—but we can’t
and has the eye problems to prove it—half-jokingly say flatly that an all-female crew would do the best.
wrote in his autobiography that if scientists can’t (However, it would almost certainly be better than
figure out what’s causing those eye issues, “we just a crew of hefty, squinting, inflexible, barren guys.)
might have to send an all-women crew to Mars.” For 192 years, all U.S. Supreme Court justices were
men. Asked when there’d be enough women on
But there are considerations beyond
N OT A BA D I D E A . the court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg shocked
the physical. While cooped up in a cramped spaceship some people with her answer: “When there are nine.”
for months or years, how well would an all-female There’s never been an all-female crew of astronauts in
crew get along? It turns out (surprise!) that scientists flight—but decades of all-male crews. When will there
know little about how all-female crews might fare be enough women in the spacecraft? When everyone
in an intense and monotonous space environment. who’s qualified has an equal shot at a seat. j
In the few studies that have been done to identify
factors in long-duration missions’ success or failure, Nadia Drake is a National Geo-
scientists observed teams that experienced stressful graphic contributing writer
with a particular fondness
Earth analogs such as desert survival treks, polar for moons, spiders, and
expeditions, and Antarctic winter-overs. They found jungle cats.
Firsts for females in space

JUNE 16-19, 1963 JUNE 18-24, 1983 JULY 25, 1984 OCTOBER 10, 2008
Valentina Tereshkova Sally Ride Svetlana Savitskaya Peggy Whitson

The Soviet cosmonaut was The NASA astronaut became The Soviet cosmonaut was the The NASA astronaut became
the first woman in space. She the first U.S. woman in space, first woman to take a space the first female International
spent about 70 hours in the as well as the third woman walk, performing tasks outside Space Station commander on
spacecraft Vostok 6, complet- there, when she flew the Chal- the Salyut 7 space station for a 2008 expedition; she held
ing 48 Earth orbits. lenger space shuttle mission. about 3.5 hours. command there again in 2017.
PHOTO: NASA
N AV I G AT E T H E U N I V E R S E
AVA I L A B L E W H E R E V E R B O O K S A R E S O L D
and at NationalGeographic.com/Books
NatGeoBooks @NatGeoBooks © 2019 National Geographic Partners, LLC

E M B A R K | PLANET OR PLASTIC
Straw materials: Assets
STRAW POLL: WHICH ONES

and disadvantages
1 . M E TA L
ARE ECO-FRIENDLY TO USE?

Made of stainless steel,
aluminum, or even titanium,
metal straws have become
a popular alternative. They
draw some criticism—for
having a metallic taste, con-
ducting heat from a hot drink,
and clanking against the
PHOTOGRAPH BY REBECCA HALE teeth—but they’re durable
to transport and reuse.
2 . PA P E R
MORE THAN 100 MILLION single-use straws—most Paper drinking straws, which
date from the late 1800s,
of them plastic—are used in the United States each day. often absorb liquid over time,
They end up in waterways, harm sea animals, and break become mushy, and can leave
a taste or fibers in drinks.
down into microplastics that are becoming ubiquitous They’re the most popular
on Earth. Numerous places have passed plastic-straw throwaway option in places
with plastic-straw bans.
bans as a way to start addressing the global plastic
waste problem. Disability advocates, however, have 3. SILICONE
This material provides a pop-
pushed back on bans: They say straws are a necessary, ular soft alternative to metal
everyday tool for many people, and nonplastic ver- reusable straws. One company
has developed a silicone straw
sions may not be suitable substitutes. — S A R A H G I B B E N S with an extra environmental
twist: When burned, it turns
2 into biologically inert ash.
4. GLASS
Though glass straws may be
more breakable and thus less
portable than reusable straws
of other materials, they hold
1 up well to washing and reuse.
Some makers add an artistic
flair to the straws with colors
and blown-glass designs
and ornaments.
3
5. HARD PL ASTIC
4 Reusable straws made from
rigid plastic are portable,
easy to clean, and reasonably
durable. Think of your typical
reusable plastic water bottle
shrunken to straw size.
6. BAMB O O
This natural material can be
sustainably produced and
is a plant-based alternative
to fabricated straws. Bamboo
straws are reusable but can
be hard to clean completely
and may absorb flavors. When
it’s time to dispose of them,
they’re easily compostable.
7
7. B E N D A B L E S T R AW S
When bendable straws were
first made in the 1940s, they
5 6 were a boon in health-care
settings to help patients drink
without sitting up. Plastic
bendable straws have become
the safe, low-cost default in
such settings—but the hunt
is on for greener alternatives.
Learn more about plastic

waste and take the pledge
to reduce it at natgeo.com/
plasticpledge.
E M B A R K
GENIUS
ELIZABETH MYNATT
B Y J E R E MY B E R L I N P H OTO G R A P H BY DAN WINTERS
She wants people to live

longer, healthier lives—
through computing.
Like other computer scientists, Eliz-
abeth Mynatt uses cutting-edge tech.
What sets her apart is her holistic,
humanistic approach. “I always say
I’m designing for both sides of the
equation,” she says. “And the people
side is always the hardest.”
Mynatt’s work on health informatics
and assistive technology has allowed
blind programmers to take advantage
of graphical computer applications,
helped pediatric epilepsy patients and
their caregivers use mobile sensing
apps, and supported older adults who
want to age in place. “The burdens of
chronic disease and aging populations
are increasingly falling to patients
and families,” she says. “And because
they’ve grown up with technology,
they’re looking to tech to have a role—
and to make things better.”
One of Mynatt’s recent artificial
intelligence projects is a preconfigured
tablet computer that gives breast-cancer
patients in rural Georgia personalized
advice on everything from surgery and
Elizabeth Mynatt directs Georgia Tech’s Institute for People and Technology.
chemotherapy to dealing with anxiety
and connecting to social services. Her
latest effort, in partnership with Emory
University, helps aging patients diag-
nosed with mild cognitive impairment,
the stage that can lead to dementia.
“In my work, I always ask, What are
the fundamental human needs here?
And how does human behavior come
‘I’M DESIGNING FOR into this situation?” says Mynatt. “Only
BOTH SIDES OF THE when you combine the answers to both
those questions do you end up creating
EQUATION. AND
designs that powerfully improve ways
THE PEOPLE SIDE IS that people can take care of their own
A LWAY S T H E H A R D E S T.’ health and their families.” j
E M B A R K | DATA S H E E T
WHAT’S
what might make a stranger laugh. Now
I T C A N B E H A R D TO G U E S S
researchers at the University of Alberta, in Canada, have developed
a formula. After reading a study in which participants rated the
SO
humorousness of some 5,000 English words, psychologists Chris
Westbury and Geoff Hollis wanted to break down what makes a
word intrinsically comical. They expanded the list to almost 45,000
words, then generated a complex statistical model to score the
FUNNY?
funny factors and analyze the humor of each one.
B Y R YA N M O R R I S A N D A L E X A N D E R S T E G M A I E R
wiggle waddle
wiggly
HOW IT LOOKS AND SOUNDS
schmooze Words associated

gobble jiggle jiggling with a consonant
plus le*
amble Contains
whoop
h the letters
droopy
d
gurgle tootle
ytoddle puking or sound oo
woozy schmoozing tinkled

drool Humorous
juju
juicy
y
puny boozy
b booby meaning
hubbub puffy ffrolic

buzz fizzy bubbly flapjacksyummy
pizzazz y
cuddle poop
jazzy ffuzzy fluffy
Contains
letters used
less frequently
frumpy slobbering
playful
howdy
y fanny
y
cutest schmuck
marshmallows
booger
ANATOMY OF A SIDESPLITTER
Strong
bozo
b
Westbury and Hollis discovered there emotional Larger
association type reflects
are two main predictors of what makes
a word funny: how it looks and sounds, twerp a higher
composite
and the meaning behind it. “Pizzazz” humor score
is comical for its unusual combination of WHAT IT MEANS
letters, but typically it’s the definition
of a word that tickles us the most. Try turd jackass
not to smirk when you say “booger.”
dude
RECIPE FOR LAUGHTER
A closer look at the 500 words that Westbury and Hollis ranked as funniest reveals common ingredients.
“Puking,” for example, has a funny-word form—the oo sound and the letter k—as well as associations with
profanity, bodily function, and partying, three of the six funny-word categories in the study.
NUMBER OF 210 202

185
WORDS WITH 162
ATTRIBUTE 129
95* 97 97
55 61 41
Low- Contains Contains Contains Contains Sexuality Profanity Bodily Insults Partying Animals
probability oo consonant k y functions
letters plus le
WORD-FORM CATEGORIES SUBJECT CATEGORIES
*WORDS LABELED AS CONTAINING A CONSONANT PLUS LE INCLUDE VARIATIONS SUCH AS -LING, -LY, AND OTHER WORDS WITH SIMILAR MEANINGS.
SOURCE: CHRIS WESTBURY AND GEOFF HOLLIS, UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA
E M B A R K | BREAKTHROUGHS
Flight of the Dandelion

By studying dandelion seeds as
they drift in the air, researchers
D I S PAT C H E S uncovered a new form of flight.
A hovering vortex created by air
FROM THE FRONT LINES flowing up through the seed’s
OF SCIENCE pappus, the tuft at its top, helps
A N D I N N O VA T I O N the seed float. The find could
explain how other life-forms move
and how filter feeders eat. — C Z
NEUROSCIENCE
To Sleep,
Perchance
to Heal
A report in the
journal Nature
Communications
adds to the list
of sleep’s benefits.
In imaging studies
of the brains of
zebrafish, scientists
saw that cells’ DNA
repair systems
could not fix a day’s
accumulated dam-
age during waking
periods—but that
they were far more
efficient during
periods of sleep.
Researchers say
this find may help ANIMALS
illuminate the con-

nections between
sleep habits, brain
MYTHICAL CREATURE
health, and aging.
—CATHERINE ZUCKERMAN
FOUND IN ANCIENT WOOD
P R AY I N G M A N T I S I S A S V E LT E ‘ U N I C O R N ’
Researchers exploring Brazil’s Atlantic Forest discovered some

five to seven new species of praying mantises. Among the new-
found creatures are unicorn mantises, which have mysterious,
hornlike structures on their heads, as seen above on a member
of the genus Zoolea.
It’s unclear exactly what purpose the protuberances serve. Per-
haps they’re “meant to break up the silhouette of the animals,” says
team leader Leonardo Lanna, whose Projeto Mantis expedition was
funded by the National Geographic Society. Predators may then
mistake them for something inedible, such as a leaf bud. Unlike
their magical namesake, the praying mantises of the Atlantic Forest
are experts in the art of blending in. — D O U G L A S M A I N
PHOTOS: LEONARDO LANNA (ABOVE); MAGNUS WENNMAN (LEFT)

IN THIS SECTION
Storied Boots
E X P L O R E A Salty Swim
Argonaut Sacrifice
Firefly Forest
I L L U M I N AT I N G T H E M Y S T E R I E S — A N D W O N D E R S — A L L A R O U N D U S E V E R Y D AY
N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C VO L . 2 3 6 N O. 1
NEW PLACES TO GO says Doulaye Kone of the Bill &

A TO I L E T I S L I K E A “ S U P E R VAC C I N E ,”
Melinda Gates Foundation. “It kills disease where it is produced.”
Traditional sanitation systems are costly to build and maintain, so
the foundation’s Reinvented Toilet initiative is helping to develop
alternatives such as the toilets seen here. Safe and inexpensive to
operate, these commodes can function without running water and,
in some cases, electricity. They’re also sustainable, eliminating
NANO HTCLEAN
pathogens while recovering nutrients and energy. MEMBRANE TOILET TOILET SYSTEM
1
Lowering the lid rotates
the bowl and activates
Untreated water a blade that scrapes
Treated water waste into a tank.
Solids
2
An Archimedes’
MECHANICAL DRY
screw moves solids
into a drying chamber.
Liquids are heated into
BIO-COMBUSTION
vapor that is filtered
through membranes.
The Nano Membrane Toilet is

a portable, self-contained unit
that doesn’t require external
power. Waste is mechanically
separated. A combustor dries Drying
and burns the solids, while chamber
liquids are heated and puri-
Rotating
fied. The resulting sanitized flush bowl
ash and water can then be
removed for safe disposal. Liquids
warming coil
Holding
10
US ER S
10
Y E A RS ’
chamber
P ER D A Y LI FE S P A N
Clean water
Membranes
T H E P RO C E S S TA K E S
3
The purified vapor Dried solids fall into The ash—as
LESS THAN 24 HOURS condenses into the combustion much as 100
TO C OM P L E T E .
water, which flows chamber, where a self- grams a day
into a tank that also sustaining burning for 10 users—is
serves as a footrest. cycle turns them to ash. emptied daily.
A GLOBAL PROBLEM
892 mil More than half the world’s people lack safe
4.5 bil Lack safely managed
sanitation services
Practice open
defecation sanitation. Almost a billion defecate out-
7.6 bil doors. Some 361,000 children under age
Total five die each year from sanitation-related
population
diseases. It’s an urgent issue in cities,
where two-thirds of us may live by 2050.
DECODER BY MANUEL CANALES
HIGH PRESSURE AND HEAT

HTClean’s vacuum flush uses water reclaimed from the
toilet’s high-temperature and pressure-separation process.
The result is purified water and disposable solid-waste
cakes. The sewer-free commode currently relies on electric-
10
US ER S
20
YEARS ’ E L EC T RIC IT Y
ity, but scientists are working to make it completely off-grid. P ER D AY L IF E S PAN R EQ U IRE D
T H E P RO C E S S TA K E S
ABOUT 3-4 HOURS
TO C OM P L E T E .
Clean-water
tank
2
The waste is pre-
heated and moved
to a reactor where
pressure and more
heat turn it into
liquid and carbonic Multistage filters
material. purify the liquid into
water that is used
Reactor to flush the toilet.
Vent chamber
Output tank
for solids
3
A mechanical press
squeezes liquid out
of the material, leaving
cakes of waste that can
be safely discarded
Normal use and water that is then
yields about 30 sent through filters.
10-gram waste
cakes a day.
Collection
tank
Output tanks
for liquid
1
A low-water flush is acti-
vated by touch screen. Excess liquid is
Vacuum suction moves moved to a tank
the waste and water for disposal or
into a collection tank. another use.
PATRICIA HEALY. ART: BRUCE MORSER. SOURCES: BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION; ALISON PARKER,
CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY; CHRISTIAN SEILER, HELBLING; WHO/UNICEF JMP; UNESCO WWAP
E X P L O R E | ARTIFACT
from a his-
B A R RY B I S H O P R E T U R N E D
toric Mount Everest expedition with
his reindeer-hide boots, Vibram-soled
hiking boots (below), knee-high over-
A FROSTBITTEN
boots with crampons—and no toes.
A polar researcher turned National
Geographic photographer, Bishop was
EVEREST DESCENT on the first U.S. expedition to summit

Everest. At 3:30 p.m. on May 22, 1963, he
and his climbing partner reached the
top, dropped to the ground, and wept.
T H E F I R ST S U C C E S S F U L U. S . E F F O RT TO
R E AC H T H E S UM M I T O F E V E R E ST TO O K A
On the descent they couldn’t find their
TO L L O N T H E OW N E R O F T H E S E B O OT S . camp. Bishop stamped his feet to warm
them but soon felt sharp pain, then
PHOTOGRAPH BY REBECCA HALE
numbness. “Knowing it is hopeless,
I abandon the effort,” he later wrote.
After Bishop spent a night without
shelter, his toes turned “dead white,
hard, and icy to the touch.” Crippled
by frostbite, he was carried partway
down the mountain by Nepalese Sher-
pas and evacuated by helicopter to a
hospital in Kathmandu. An American
doctor flew in to administer an exper-
imental drug to revive the damaged
tissue in his feet, but it failed.
Along with all of his toes, Bishop lost
the tips of two fingers. Still, he continued
to climb—and his son, Brent, conquered
Everest in 1994, making it a father-and-
son feat. “There are no true victors,”
Barry Bishop wrote of the mountain.
“Only survivors.” — N I N A S T RO C H L I C
Barry Bishop made it to

the top of Everest but was
crippled by frostbite on the
descent. He wore these hiking
boots—each weighing nearly
four pounds—as Sherpas
carried him partway down.
E X P L O R E | BASIC INSTINCTS
Greater argonaut
(Argonauta argo)
HOW DOES THIS OCEANIC ODD 1. NAME GAME

This species of octopus is
COUPLE MANAGE TO HAVE SEX?

also known as the paper
nautilus (the shell it builds
to hold its eggs is made of
paper-thin calcium carbon-
ate). The Chinese name for the
species translates to “white
seahorse’s nest.”
PHOTOGRAPH BY JULIAN FINN
2 . A R G O N AU T M Y T H
In 300 B.C. Aristotle described
his vision of a female argonaut
the awesome power of the drive to procreate,
L E S T YO U D O U B T
using her shell as a boat and
consider what Mr. and Mrs. Argonaut (Argonauta argo) must go her tentacles as sails and oars.
through to send baby argonauts out into the world. In 2010 octopus experts Julian
Finn and Mark Norman docu-
This octopus species lives in open water in Earth’s tropical and mented what actually occurs:
subtropical seas. It’s not the easiest place to find a mate, espe- The argonaut moves by expel-
ling jets of water, surfaces
cially since the male is tiny—less than three-quarters of an inch enough to trap air in her shell,
long—while the female can be up to 30 times his size. She has two then is buoyed at an optimal
specialized dorsal arms that secrete a chalky substance, forming water level by the air bubble.
a pleated shell in which she can hide, float, and brood eggs. The 3 . C O M M O N, E LU S I V E
male is sans shell, but he too has a specialized arm: a tentacle-like, Though rarely seen by
detachable copulatory organ called a hectocotylus. humans, A. argo is widespread
in Earth’s more tropical oceans.
After attaching to the female, the male releases his hectocotylus, It’s preyed upon by tuna,
which worms its way into the female’s mantle cavity. She may dolphins, and billfishes but
stockpile these disembodied sperm arms from several mates and still described as of least
concern on the IUCN Red List
use them to fertilize her eggs over time. She’ll lay strings of eggs of Threatened Species.
tethered to her shell (also called an egg case) where she can tend
them as they develop. Scientists know this because they’ve been
able to observe argonaut mothers live—but not fathers.
After donating his paternal part, no male has been seen alive Female, 17 inches Male, 0.6 in
growing a new one; only dead specimens have been found. As his last
act, the small but mighty paterfamilias gives an arm and a life to the
cause of reproduction. — PAT R I C I A E D M O N D S A N D E VA VA N D E N B E RG
J. FINN, MUSEUMS VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA; TAYLOR MAGGIACOMO, NGM STAFF (ILLUSTRATION)

E X P L O R E | GETTING THERE
BY THE NUMBERS
HOURS FROM JERUSALEM ,

2
BY CAR
34%
S A LT C O N C E N T R AT I O N
1,424
FEET BELOW SEA LEVEL
A SALTY
ASIA
Dead
Sea
AFRICA
The Dead Sea is
the lowest point
on the surface
of the Earth.
Visiting an island-like salt formation in the Dead
NGM MAPS
‘ T H E O N LY WAY T O G E T
THERE IS BY SWIMMING.
IT ’S REALLY PAINF UL BECAUSE
T H E WA T E R I S S O S A LT Y.’
—Ricardo Braz
A F E W Y E A R S A G O Ricardo Braz was scrolling through Instagram when he

spotted a picture of a tiny island made of salt in the Dead Sea. He added
it to his bucket list. In December the 24-year-old freelance photographer
traveled to Israel, borrowed a drone, and set off in search of the island.
T M I N U S O N E D AY T M I N U S Z E R O D AY S T MINUS ZERO HOURS
HEADING TO ESSENTIAL READY FOR

THE SEA PA C K I N G L I S T L AU N C H
Braz spent a week The Dead Sea is nearly 10 “We tried to take pictures
exploring the desert of times as salty as average of the island from a dis-
Jordan, the ruins of Petra, ocean water. Swimming in tance, but it wasn’t even
and the Red Sea during the sea and exploring the worth it,” says Braz. After
a photography workshop. other attractions around a test flight with the
Then he and friends Vilma it require a unique set of drone, the group drew
Öhrman and Guy Davies supplies—including some straws to decide who
rented a car and headed that Braz wished he had would stay to operate it
to the border with Israel. thought to bring. (Davies) while the others
The three waited hours swam to the island. During
for a military drill to finish • Swimming goggles the 15-minute swim, salt
before they could cross. • Extra water water stung the eyes and
From there, a shuttle • A towel dried the mouths of Braz
dropped them in Jerusa- • A drone or contact and Öhrman. Neither had
lem, and the next morning for drone rental brought goggles or a bot-
they headed off in another • Compact down jacket tle of water. On the island,
rental car for the Dead for cold desert nights they basked in the sun
Sea and a small resort area • A wide-angle lens while the drone flew over-
called Ein Bokek. • Hiking boots head, snapping photos.
ISLAND IN THE SEA

Sea meant a swim in one of the world’s briniest bodies of water.
BY NINA STROCHLIC P H O T O G R A P H B Y G U Y D AV I E S
J U LY 2 0 1 9 35
E X P L O R E | THROUGH THE LENS
Flashes
in the
Dark
A PHOTOGRAPHER SHIFTS
HER GAZE FROM THE
O N G O I N G I N S TA B I L I T Y A N D
VIOLENCE IN MEXICO TO
THE FLEETING BEAU T Y OF
ONE OF THE COUNTRY ’S
N AT U R A L W O N D E R S .
BY KIRSTEN LUCE
if I could pho-
W H E N A N E D I TO R C A L L E D TO A S K my Mexican colleagues face censorship and threats
tograph a story about fireflies in Mexico, I didn’t to their lives.
check my schedule before I said yes. I’d seen these Though necessary and important, news stories
insects light up the forests in Tlaxcala once before, don’t reflect the Mexico that I fell for and that is
and I jumped at the chance to go back. home to so many people I love. An assignment
While studying at the University of Colima, I focused on the country’s natural beauty was a wel-
began exploring Mexico, crossing the country several come reprieve.
times by bus. I’ve spent time in 28 of its 31 states, and I had three nights to capture the magical scene in
the variety of landscapes—Michoacán’s beaches, the forest. Tripod in hand, I hiked with my colleagues
Colima’s volcano, San Luis Potosí’s plateau— into the misty forest at dusk. I set up, and we waited,
captivates me in a way that no other country has. our banter dissipating as the daylight waned and tiny
Now I work as a photojournalist in Mexico and specks of light emerged.
along the border, documenting desperate situations According to our guides, visitors are usually
that rarely seem to improve for everyday Mexicans. not allowed to photograph the fireflies because
I’m lucky enough to be able to leave when I need to; the presence of artificial light from electronics can
affect their habits. As I started shooting, I adjusted flashes from a powerful flashlight—and I’d grown
my exposures constantly to account for the fading accustomed to insects on my face.
light. In order to get the composition that I wanted, I was rewarded with the image you see here. Each
I placed my tripod on a steep, rocky path and had to speck of light is one of several bursts that a firefly
steady it during the long exposures. Normally this makes as it travels within a 30-second exposure. You
wouldn’t be a big deal, but the fireflies were very can trace the insects’ paths: Some make small loops,
interested in the camera and, by extension, in me. like those in the bottom center of the frame, while
I stood completely still while they crawled all over others move steadily in one direction or another.
me—my arms, my hair, my face—and tickled my The first time I visited the fireflies, I didn’t have
nose and cheeks. From what I observed, peak firefly the pressure of trying to capture and convey this
presence happens for only about 20 minutes each wondrous scene. I was just immersed and completely
night, so I had time for just a few tries. enchanted. That will always be my favorite experi-
On the last night everything came together. The ence with these luminous creatures. j
weather cooperated. I had improved my method Kirsten Luce most recently photographed wildlife tourism for
for focusing and composing in the dark with quick the June 2019 issue of the magazine.
J U LY 2 0 1 9 39
H I S F U T U R E C A N B E YO U R L E GAC Y
You can leave the world better than you found it. When you leave a gift to the
National Geographic Society in your will, trust, or by beneficiary designation, you can
protect critical animal species for generations to come. There is no minimum amount
and your gift costs you nothing now. It’s an easy way to make a lasting difference.
PHOTO: KOSTADIN LUCHANSKY/OKAVANGO WILDERNESS PROJECT

COPYRIGHT 2019 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY
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N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C J U LY 2 0 1 9
Moon Countdown . . . . . . P. 44
Space: What’s Next . . . . P. 80
Marine Parks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P. 96
Niger Crossroads . . . . . . P. 110
Devastating Floods . . . P. 136
F EAT U R E S
‘ THE COLD, NU TRIENT-RICH
96 WAT E R S F E E D G I A N T K E L P
FORESTS THAT HARBOR ONE
OF THE MOST MAGNIFICENT
MARINE ECOSYSTEMS ON
T H E P L A N E T.’
PHOTO: ENRIC SALA

COUNTDOWN TO A NEW ERA

IN SPACE
Astronaut Harrison Schmitt bounds toward the lunar rover during the
Apollo 17 mission in December 1972, the last time humans set foot on the moon.
This image is part of a panorama that NASA created from 18 photos.
E D I TO R’ S N OT E :
To show how the lunar landscape looked to the astronauts,
NASA removed lens flare from sunlight by blacking out the sky.
NASA/LUNAR AND PLANETARY INSTITUTE
45
F
ifty years ago this month, astronauts
walked on the moon for the first time.
Apollo 11’s success—just 66 years after the
Wright brothers’ first flight—showcased
humankind’s moxie and ingenuity. Now the
moon is in our sights again, for a generation
that will test where science meets profit.
00:0 :05 :04 :03

PIONEERS GETTING WHERE WE
THERE WENT
ABOVE: Documenting the small steps of Apollo 11 astronauts, Buzz Aldrin took these photographs of his boot print.
T MINUS
0:06 :02 :01 :00
WHAT WE IN POP WHAT’S
TOOK CULTURE NEXT
NASA JOHNSON SPACE CENTER 47

T MINUS
PIONEERS
ANIMALS WERE OUR FIRST
LEFT: John Glenn wore
this space suit, made SPACE TRAVELERS, CLEARING
with 27 zippers to THE WAY FOR ASTRONAUTS
ensure a tight fit, when
he orbited Earth on WHO BECAME FAMOUS—AND
February 20, 1962. FOR LESSER KNOWN HEROES.
BY NADIA DRAKE PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAN WINTERS

uri Gagarin, Alan

Y Shepard, John Glenn,
Neil Armstrong—the
first wave of space travelers—
were military-trained astronauts
thought to have the “right stuff”
for risky missions.
But early spaceflight wasn’t the
exclusive province of men—or
even humans. Fruit flies, mon-
keys, mice, dogs, rabbits, and rats
flew into space before humans.
More than three years before
Gagarin became the first human
in space with his April 1961
journey around Earth, the Sovi-
ets famously—or perhaps infa-
mously—sent up a stray dog. Laika
was the first animal to orbit Earth
but died during her flight. The
United States launched a chim-
panzee named Ham into space.
Happily, he survived, clearing the
way for Shepard to became the first
American in space in May 1961.
Despite discrimination, women
were also pioneers. Some, such
as mathematician Katherine
Johnson—who hand-calculated
the details of the trajectory of the
flight that would make Glenn
the first American to orbit the
Earth in 1962—stayed behind the
scenes. Valentina Tereshkova, an
early cosmonaut, became the first
woman in orbit in 1963. It wasn’t
until two decades later that Sally
Ride flew on the space shuttle
Challenger to become the first
American woman to reach space.
TOP AB OVE RIGHT
Sputnik’s launch on Strelka shot into space The Apollo 11 crew,

October 4, 1957, was in a Soviet craft on including the first
covered on television, August 19, 1960, along astronauts to land
a relatively new and with another dog, on the moon, were
increasingly popular Belka; a rabbit; 40 mice; carried into space on
medium. The Soviet two rats; flies; and July 16, 1969, in this
Union’s surprise suc- some plants and fungi. command module, the
cess at putting the first The menagerie made it Columbia. The three
human-made object back to Earth. The pre- men returned to Earth
in space shocked the served dogs, hailed as in the capsule, which
U.S. and triggered the heroes, are displayed in splashed down south-
superpower space race. a Moscow museum. west of Hawaii.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION MUSEUM OF COSMONAUTICS MUSEUM OF FLIGHT, SEATTLE
50
T MINUS
GETTING THEREEARLY ROCKETEERS FIGURED THAT

LEFT:Using old but still
reliable technology, A MULTISTAGE LAUNCHER COULD
Russia launches a Soyuz PROPEL HUMANS TO THE MOON.
rocket in March from its
Baikonur Cosmodrome THE SATURN V DID THAT—AND
in Kazakhstan. SET THE STAGE FOR THE FUTURE.
COUNTDOWN TO A NEW ERA IN SPACE PAGE 53

bespectacled, bearded
A Russian recluse fond of
RUSSIAN
science fiction, Konstan-
tin Tsiolkovsky believed human- 1950 MILESTONES
ity’s destiny lay among the stars. J U LY 2 2 , 1 9 5 1
Soviet Union begins
By the early 1900s, he had worked suborbital flights with
out the equation for humans to dogs as passengers.
slip beyond Earth’s gravitational

pull. He also imagined how moon-
bound rockets would work: using
a mix of liquid propellants and
igniting multiple stages.
Independently, Hermann
Oberth and Robert Goddard
1955
reached similar conclusions. By U.S.
1926, Goddard, an American, had MILESTONES OCTOBER 4, 1957
The Sputnik satellite is
built and launched the first liquid- the first human-made
fueled rocket. About that time, JA N UA RY 3 1 , 1 9 5 8 object to orbit Earth.
Explorer 1 becomes the first
Oberth, who lived in Germany, U.S. satellite to reach space. NOVEMBER 3, 1957
determined multiple stages are Sputnik 2 carries the first
1960
animal, a dog named Laika,
crucial for long journeys. into Earth orbit.
Four decades later, the trio’s
ideas roared to life in the enor- M AY 5 , 1 9 6 1 APRIL 12, 1961
mous Saturn V rockets that thrust Freedom 7 is launched Yuri Gagarin flies in Vostok 1,
with Alan Shepard, the becoming the first human to
Apollo crews into space. Mea- first American to make reach space and orbit Earth.
suring 363 feet tall and fueled by a suborbital flight.
liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen, F E B RUA RY 2 0, 1 9 6 2 JUNE 16, 1963

Vostok 6 is launched with
and kerosene, the Saturn V was John Glenn becomes the first
Valentina Tereshkova, the
American to orbit Earth,
the most powerful rocket ever piloting Friendship 7. first woman to reach space.
1965
built. Engineered by Wernher von
MARCH 18, 1965
Braun—a Nazi Germany rocket Alexei Leonov conducts the
scientist who relocated much of first space walk.
his team to work for the U.S. after F E B RUA RY 3 , 1 9 6 6

World War II—the Saturn V had Luna 9, an uncrewed space-
craft, achieves the first soft
three stages that fired in sequence. landing on the moon.
Rocketry is still governed by
Tsiolkovsky’s equation. But no
rocket has yet eclipsed the Saturn J U LY 2 0 , 1 9 6 9
Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and
1970
V, which propelled humans closer Buzz Aldrin are the first
to the stars than ever before. to walk on the moon.
FA R R I G H T
Five bell-shaped
engines powered
the initial stage of the
Saturn V rocket, which
shot most of the Apollo
missions beyond Earth’s
orbit and eventually
carried astronauts
to the moon. Together
the five engines gener-
1975
ated as much energy J U LY 1 5 , 1 9 7 5
as 85 Hoover dams. The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project becomes the first international
NASA KENNEDY SPACE CENTER partnership in space, between the U.S. and Soviet Union.
VISITOR COMPLEX
54
PHOTOENGRAVINGS: SOVFOTO/UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP/SHUTTERSTOCK (SPUTNIK); OMIKRON/SCIENCE SOURCE/GETTY IMAGES

(EXPLORER); GENE J. PUSKAR, AP/SHUTTERSTOCK (CAPSULE); SPUTNIK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY (LUNA 9); NASA (ALDRIN) 55
Parachutes
Launch
SOVIETS vehicle
SPACE
IN SPACE SHUTTLE
The Soviets’ Vostok 1981-2011
(“East” in Russian)
launched the
first human, Yuri Spacecraft
Gagarin, into one VOSTOK 1 Orbiter
1961 COLUMBIA
orbit around Earth.
1981-2003
Launch
Third
vehicle
stage
R7
1957-present
The R7 was first First First stage Cargo First stage
used for space- stage bay (reusable)
Solid rocket
flight to launch boosters
Sputnik. A third could be
stage was added Second stage
refurbished
later; modified after use if no
versions are still damage was
in use. discovered. In-orbit
fuel
First stage, Landing
FERNANDO G. BAPTISTA,
KAYA BERNE, EVE four boosters legs
CONANT, NGM STAFF; open
RONALD PANIAGUA
SOURCES: NASA; SMITH-
SONIAN’S NATIONAL AIR
AND SPACE MUSEUM;
SPACEX; THE SOYUZ
LAUNCH VEHICLE, BY
CHRISTIAN LARDIER AND
STEFAN BARENSKY
6.5 million lb
4.5 million lb
Numbers are TOTAL WEIGHT 1.2 million lb
averages for (proportions not available)
specific vehi-
0.58 million lb 91%
84%
cles above.
Fuel (%) 88% Spacecraft
PAYLOAD (crew and cargo) 11,000 lb (to low Earth orbit) 250,000 lb 100,000 lb (to lunar orbit) 63,500 lb 50,000 lb
GETTING THERE AND BACK
VOSTOK
Stage 3
Astronaut U.S. REACHES
LIFTING OFF
Rapid advancements in spaceflight
occurred during the space race be-
Pressurized
section for
THE MOON tween the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
Stage 2 crew The only rocket to Ballistic missiles for warfare evolved
carry humans past into rockets destined for exploration.

Stage 1 low Earth orbit had Now commercial space companies
Capsule
hydrogen-powered are also building spacecraft and sell-
Engine engines in its second
and third stages.
ing tickets for future tourist flights.
APOLLO Moon Lunar
Stage 3 module Spacecraft
Stage 2
APOLLO 11
Parachute
1969 U.S. GOES
Stage 1
Capsule Launch
COMMERCIAL
vehicle NASA has contract-
Fuel SATURN V ed with SpaceX to
tank 1967-1973 bring astronauts as
well as cargo to
SHUTTLE the International
External tank Third Space Station.
stage
Spacecraft
Stage 1
CREW DRAGON
Interstage 2019
Launch
vehicle
FA L C O N 9 ROUND-TRIP FALCON 9
Flip 2010-present
Stage 1 maneuver TICKET
The world’s first Second
reusable spacecraft stage
Capsule to carry humans
Landing pad into orbit could
transport up to
Second eight passengers. External
stage fuel tank
A Soyuz spacecraft
is towed to a launch-
pad this past March
at the Baikonur Cos-
modrome. Developed
by the Soviet Union in
the 1960s, the durable
design is still used by
Russia’s space program.
Since the last space
shuttle was retired in
2011, U.S. astronauts
have hitched rides to
the International Space
Station on the Soyuz.
C O U N T D OW N TO A N E W E R A I N S PAC E 59
SUITING UP
Space suits—designed to provide oxygen and consistent LUNAR EXTRAVEHICULAR
VISOR ASSEMBLY
atmospheric pressure—have evolved from pressure suits
Two visors, one gold
for pilots in high-altitude planes to ones that can keep coated, shield user from
astronauts alive in the near-vacuum conditions of space. the sun’s rays and heat.
DESIGNED FOR SURVIVAL NEIL ARMSTRONG

Apollo 11 suit
Extravehicular Activity E Intravehicular Activity I Intra/Extravehicular IE
(EVA) Space Suits (IVA) Space Suits Activity (IEVA) Space Suits
EVA suits allow for work outside IVA suits are an emergency IVA suits accessorized to work
spaceships. They protect against system for cabin contamination outside, or IEVAs, eliminate
threats such as extreme tem- or decompression. Proper pressure the need for two separate Pressure
peratures, debris, and radiation. keeps body fluids from boiling. suits and reduce cargo weight. helmet
Suits shown pressurized
Ventilation
control module
(VCM) with
backup oxygen
Control unit for LSS
Connected to the LSS:

Valves to supply
pure oxygen
Valves to remove
carbon dioxide
The moon’s dust is so

Oxygen sharp it penetrated
tank the suit’s outer layers
and clogged zippers.
Maneu-
vering
device
Injection patch
for medication
1934-1935 (years worn) 1959-1968 1961-1963 1965-1966 1969-1974

WINNIE MAE I X- 1 5 I M E R C U RY I GEMINI IE APOLLO IE
Wiley Post designed the first The suit was used on the This suit took on water in The first suit worn The first suit used on the
pressure suit, made of cotton first rocket-powered craft one landing; later Mercu- outside a vehicle was moon enabled astronauts
and rubber, and flew nearly to hit the edge of space, ry suits had survival gear attached by an oxygen to fully separate from
50,000 feet high in it. 62 miles above sea level. with flotation devices. and tether line. a spacecraft.
Weight: not recorded Weight: 25 lb Weight: 22 lb Weight: 34 lb VCM: 8 lb Weight: 76 lb LSS: 125 lb
Lockheed Vega Winnie Mae North American X-15 Mercury capsule Gemini capsule Apollo capsule Overshoes
FERNANDO G. BAPTISTA, KAYA BERNE, EVE CONANT, NGM STAFF; JOSE DANIEL CABRERA PEÑA
SOURCES: KENNETH S. THOMAS; NASA; SMITHSONIAN’S NATIONAL AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM; RICHARD D. WATSON; AMY J. ROSS
UNDERGARMENTS
1 Liquid cooling garment

Adjustable prevents overheating
peripheral
sun shield 2 Urine-collection assembly
SPACE SUIT LAYERS

3 Comfort liner
4 Neoprene-coated nylon to
retain pressure
5 Nylon restraint layer
6 Protective layers include
thermal-regulating
aluminized polymers and
fire-resistant fabric
LIFE-SUPPORT SYSTEM (LSS)

8 7 Portable life-support sys-
tem (up to six hours)
8 Emergency oxygen (30 minutes)
7
6
T MINUS
WHERE WE WENT
1
1983-today
RIGHT: In 1966 and 1967 APOLLO MISSIONS FOCUSED
SHUTTLE/ISS E
five orbiters photo- ON THE MOON’S NEAR SIDE.
Suits, once customized, now
graphed the moon, NOW UNCREWED PROBES ARE
have generic, swappable parts
that fit men and women on the helping to identify
International Space Station. sites where Apollo REVEALING MORE ABOUT
Weight: 122 lb LSS: 187 lb missions would land. THE MOON AND BEYOND.

Shuttle
NASA IMAGE COLLECTION/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO (TOP); NASA/U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY/LUNAR AND PLANETARY INSTITUTE (2)
NEW PHASE OF
North Pole
Peary
Near side
itter
Pascal GRAIL A (Ebb) De S
GRAIL B (Flow)
EXPLORATION
ud Hay
60° Py 12/17/2012 Bailla n 60°
tha
go Meto
ras n
Goldschmidt Barrow ld Hum Ma
Anaxi Arno bold re
tianum
a mander
Volt e J. He o
Babbag r schel W. Bond Strab
National Geographic has always been

M A R E F R Endym
ion
at the forefront of lunar mapping. Sinus rius
I G rcu
As the Apollo program closed in on its Roris Me
O R I S
O
Lac
Tem
goal, cartographers relied on photos Plato s Aristoteles poursi us
vo Jura lpe s Lacei
from 1966 and 1967 orbiter missions to Branu es sA Hercules Atlas
C
Mo Valli Sp
n
nt
Sinus n Lacus ala

create the February 1969 hand-painted Mess ss
Mo
Gau
tes
Iridum
E
Mortis
map—considered the best reference Chang’e 3
Alp
Franklin
us
30° 12/14/2013 30°
es
at the time. Our newest version uses
A N
aucas
Lac s Hahn
Luna 17 Cassini us S Berosu
a mosaic of some 15,000 images and 11/17/1970
om niorum Geminus
Montes C
detailed height measurements from
M A R E Aristillus
ntes Beresheet
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mogricola 4/11/2019 M on te s
A
U S
Luna 2 rch
which has surveyed the entire surface. MARE Ta ur us Cleomed
es Mare
An Pluta le
Montes
Harbinger
9/14/1959
Apollo 15 Hubb
The moon is peppered with probes Luna 21
gu
Palus 7/30/1971
I M B R I U
is
s
Aristarchus 1/15/1973
and landers, the legacy of human M Putredinis
nu
tein
S E R E N I TAT I S
otu
d
Goddar
ni
od
Eins
efforts to explore it. Her M on M AR E

en
Luna 13 tes Luna 15
MA
Ap Apollo 17
MARGI
12/24/1966 Ha 7/21/1969
P R
es em 12/11/1972 E
R
Bohr Mon t us NI
tes Carpa
tus
Mon
Palus CR IS IU M S
A larger version of this map can be MARE Manilius Somni
Luna 8 Luna 7 MARE Luna 23
purchased at: natgeo.com/spacemaps. 10/7/1965 Luna 5 VAPORUM Luna 24 11/6/1974 Neper
12/6/1965
O
5/12/1965 Copernicus Ranger 6 8/18/1976

Kepler TRANQUILLITATIS
Lunar missions Luna 9 MARE Surveyor 4 2/2/1964 Mare
2/3/1966 7/17/1967 Undarum
C
Landing INSULARUM Ranger 8 Taruntius Luna 18

Crash or impact Reinhold West East Surveyor 5 2/20/1965 Luna 20 9/11/1971 Schubert
E
60° EQUATOR 30° Longitude 0° Longitude 9/11/1967 30° 2/21/1972 60° MARE
0° Apollo 14 0°
Country or agency Surveyor 3 2/5/1971 Surveyor 6 Apollo 11 Luna 16
L
Surveyor 1 Tranquility Base

FE MA
Riccioli 4/20/1967 11/10/1967
is
CU 9/20/1970 SMYTHII
United States (U.S.) ND RE
eri s
t at
sp Sinu
6/2/1966 7/20/1969
L
Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.)/Russia Grimaldi Apollo 12 Surveyor 2 ITA

Schlüter 11/19/1969 9/23/1966 A TI
A
China Kästner
Apollo 16 S
Japan
R Mare
Ranger 7
Ptolemaeus
4/21/1972
Langrenus
U Cognitum 7/31/1964 Ranger 9 MARE La Pérous
Pyren
European Space Agency (ESA)
s
A
M us i
Montaeesus
e
ali
La tum
M 3/24/1965
u
on
c n o n ris
India NECTARIS Colombo

irs
Lamé Ansgariu
Gassendi Catharina Vendelinus s
t e
Israel
M s Ve
Arzachel
La
ae S
MARE
Crüger
Ru
cu
Bullialdus
s
La Caille
Lunar topography (in feet) Santbech
Rim
MARE
pe
Gibbs
C o
Darwin Mersenius NUBIUM Fracastorius

t e
Purbach
HUMORUM Apianus
r d i
30,000 lt Hecatae
A
Cavendish Regiomontanus
s
Werner ai Petavius us
Lamarck Piccolomini
Va
15,000 *As the moon has no sea level, zero is Pitatus

l l e r
Deslandres
R o o
lli
set where a sphere with a 1,079-mile Palus Zagut

s S
0* radius would intersect the surface. Epidemiarum Gemma Hum

Frisius Rabbi Stevinus bold
t
a
SMART-1 Capuanus Levi

nel
k
Lag
-15,000 an 9/3/2006 Lacus

Orontius Rheita Barn
lius
r
g iae Lacus er Hiten

e Excellent öfl ard
-30,000 30° Timoris Surveyor 7 Metius 4/10/1993
St
azz Hainzel Maurolycus Furne 30°

Pi
Tycho ri
Va
i 1/10/1968 Faraday Fabricius us

Abe
lli
Barocius l
Va
Sc
s
hic Licetus
llis
Rh
ou kar Maginus Ja n s s e n
B
d s
va Longomontanu
eit
rd Ham
Cuvier Baco Pitiscus ilton
a
i Sc Oke
e iram hill Watt n
Baa
d Ingh er Rosenb
Peir
e sciu
Jacobi erger Biela s
y li de s Clavius
Phoc Zach
Scheiner Nearc
h
Blancanus
ot
s Mutus
Zucchiu tinus Curtius Po
nté Ly
Bet
gré Gruemberg
er Manzinus co
Pin
ula
nt
B
Lunar SELENE/Kaguya
a
i Prospector Chandrayaan-1 6/10/2009

l
FAMILIAR FACE 60° Hau
sen
l y LCROSS,
Centaur Impactor
7/31/1999 Moon Impact Probe
11/14/2008
He
lm
ho
60°
With the moon gravitationally 0 mi 400
ltz
10/9/2009 Demonax
locked, the near side always faces Scott 0 km 400
the Earth. Its circular plains—called Amundsen LAMBERT AZIMUTHAL EQUAL-AREA PROJECTION
maria, from Latin for seas—formed
South Pole
when lava filled impact basins.
North Pole
GLOSSARY (Singular, plural) Nansen
Rozhdestvenskiy FAR side TO THE MOON OR BUST
ill
Catena, catenae: chain of craters ce
Lovela elich
err
Dorsum, dorsa: ridge Plaskett The prize of the space race—landing
M
Fro
d
bla
Lacus, lacūs: small plain Milank humans on the moon and returning
ind
ch ov ič ev L
Mare, maria: broad, flat plain 60° Thiessen e nts them home safely—fueled the rivalry
eth
ovi Schwarzschild 60°
Bel'k Mez tes
Pan
Mons, montes: mountain Karpinskiy ocra between the U.S. and Soviet Union in
Palus, paludes: small plain Schjelle Hipp he r ki
rup Nöt ws the 1960s. Now robotic missions are
t
cho
but
Rupes, rupēs: steep slope Yab
loch Kirkwood olu determining whether the moon could
cz o
kov Gamow ns Sm ondy
Sinus, sinūs: small plain ton Stebbi
Comp van'tff
Po
Avogadro Sommerfeld Zsig
m be a stepping-stone for human ven-
Vallis, valles: valley Ho mb
Volte Olivie Emden ulo tures deeper into the solar system.
All other named r ra r Tikhov Co
features are craters. ff in
von B irkho ers ghl
Bék Störm Yamamoto Kram L au
ésy er Rowland Mc
ton
Fab Chappell Sar an
Stef ner
r De Mor Carnot gg
y Ale Weg
e Bra
D'
aes
nger
i
Millika mb 1960
Slipher Paraskevopoulos
Harkheb
n ert De b Schlesi d chi

ni
ye Esnault- Woo
dau
Lac
Ca
Bridgm Pawsey l Montgolfier Pelterie st

mov
l
be ern
ten
an
Lan
p Chernyshev z u
Lo
Cam R a re N
a
H. G. W pel
Ves Von Zei
Fow
1965
Su m
ti ells Ley Dunér er nt

ne Canto Wiener Kulik Frost k
l
inloc z
ne r
30° Ma Szila
rd r Schneller kiy W tgen 30° Apollo 8
x well Richa Kidinn
C
Kur aten Kurchato
Von Neumann
avlovs Rön
rdson Harriot u c ha a v Charlier Petrop Apollo 10, 11, 12
t Champollion Gadomski 1970
Appleton Moore Laue Apollo 13
ov
Lom Evershed kaya pus

Jolio
t onos Kovalevs Leucip Apollo 14, 15
ov Seyfert Sanford r
Ediso Nušl e
n Shayn Larmor Cockcroft Berkn Apollo 16, 17
go
Deutsch Polzuno RE NSE Parena 1975
v Trumpler Joule Bell
Dziew Florensky MAOVIE Bronk
ulski Vernadskiy C Fitzgerald SELENE /Okina Roberts
on
Olcott OS Komarov Freundlich Dante 2/12/2009
Al-Bir Mission type
M
uni Siedentopf 1980

Popov Morse Ohm
Buys-Ballot
Harvey Fersman Flyby, orbiter, or test vehicle
Po y
Ibn Flemin Gavrilov Konstantinov Bredikhin

g Mach ti n Lunar Orbiter 3 Landing or impactor
n
Yunus Hertz g
Kostinskiy McMath Kekulé 10/9/1967 1985
Anderson
Dreyer Guyot Kohlschütter Raimond
Lobachev Meshcherskiy Spencer Jones LADEE Mission failure
skiy Sharonov 4/18/2014
Moiseev Ostwald Ca
Papaleksi Artem'ev te 1990
Al-Khwarizmi ev Country or agency
na
Ibn Firnas Zhukovskiy Lebedinskiy

Michelson
Le
e
Lunar Orbiter 1
el
us
Saenger Tsander
120° United States (U.S.)
ch
nd
Firsov Schuster 10/29/1966

ne
Krasovskiy 1995
Me
Babcock Kibal'chich
r
Ca
Lunar Orbiter 2 Hert zsp rung Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.)/Russia

ten
Abul Wáfa 10/11/1967 150° Coriolis 180° EQUATOR 150° 120°

aM
0° 0° China
Vening Vavilov
ich
Wyld Saha Schliemann East West Cat

Meinesz ena 2000 Japan
elso
Bečvář Longitude Longitude L

s
Lunar Orbiter 5 ucr

ri
Vesalius Pannekoek K o r o l e v
n
e
Vent
Stratton Daedalus Icarus 1/31/1968 tiu European Space Agency (ESA)

Einthoven a
Dellinger e r
s
Hirayama Chaplygin l India

Amici Lucretius 2005
Lane Marconi Keeler Heaviside
l
Langemak Perepelkin Mechnikov Israel

i
Chauvenet Doppler
o k
Pa
Beijerinck Racah South Korea

Meitner
icky
i
s
o
r
st
o
McKellar al Ioffe 2010
eu
G
C o
R
Zw
r Aitken
Ranger 4 Lowell
Isaev Mohorovičić
Vertregt De Vries 4/26/1962 Maunde
Cyrano
Backlund
s
Fe r m i Pirquet Gagarin r
Hilbert
s
Strömgren 2015
Tsiolkovskiy
t e
Paracelsus
t e
Levi-Civita Gerasim
owska Plummer
IEN RE
Nassau
TAL
ovich
Sklod d ef f Orlov Von der Pahlen
OR MA
a
n
Sierpinski
Gr an
M o n
Alden Planned missions

a
V
Rumford Barringer 2020

o
Neujmin Pavlov Mariotte

Leeuwenhoek
Cu
e Scalig
er Subbotin MARE Thomson Birkeland
ri
d Seidel
us Lamplan
Lacinis Jules Oppenheimer
ev
tud ne INGENII A p o l l o
bys
h
Soli Mil Verne
Leibnitz Davisson Ch e
onne
r Eötvös Obruchev Langmui Brouw
D ur st Maksutov r er
30° Parkh Ramsay Finsen Black 30°
Oresme n
and o c he Koch Kármá Buffon ett
Rossel r on Chang’e 4 Stet
R
Chrétien son
V
e
Carv
M
Pauli 1/3/2019 Leavit

Crocco Grisso t
AR
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ne Van aals v iy Cori
Jen Kozyre Tserask
E
b W Hopmann Boyle
U Lam
A
e v Hess Bose Baldet Karrer

ST e d Ryd
RA Leb Bhabha e b
nd Gu erg
l
é
e g ra
in Poincar Abbe Minko
Me
LE hin Cass k Bellinsgauzen wski thn
uc a n c ick Highest point
An P l Cabannes Fizea
u n 35,387 ft
Lemaît an
Va Berlage re pm 10,786 m
llis Lyman Lip Ar
r
Wat
rlin rhe
gle
P lan Eijkm son

be Minnaert iadi an ni
Ku
ck
am ton ov Crom
us
An mer meli
Ch
Nu val
n Petz
Valli
s
60° Schrö
dinger
Sch
rödi
nger
De Forest
Zee
man Do
e
60°
RUGGED REVERSE
The far side is more varied and
rfe
MATTHEW W. CHWASTYK, NGM STAFF

l
SOURCES: NASA; GAZETTEER OF PLANETARY

Hale ook pocked with craters than the
NOMENCLATURE, PLANETARY GEOMATICS GROUP,
USGS; NASA/JPL; UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA; JOHNS
Ashbr flatter near side. The moon’s Lowest point
HOPKINS UNIVERSITY APPLIED PHYSICS LABORATORY;
CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON; LISA South Pole features are named for astro- -30,112 ft
GADDIS, USGS ASTROGEOLOGY SCIENCE CENTER nauts, scientists, and scholars. -9,178 m
AFTER APOLLO
Nearly half a century has elapsed since humans last visite
But we never stopped exploring. We’ve inhabited research
(right) and sent robotic craft (below) to venture even fart
selfies on Mars, plunge into Jupiter, and investigate our s
INNER SOLAR SYSTEM
n the 1960s our moon was

I still very much a mystery.
To learn the most from
the Apollo visits, NASA selected
landing sites in a variety of lunar
Mercury
terrains, including the dark, flat
plains sculpted by vanished lava 2 Venus
oceans and highlands formed by 19

meteor impacts. Sun
From 1969 to 1972, U.S. astro- 10
nauts landed at six sites, each Missions
chosen for different scientific
objectives. All of them were on the
moon’s mottled near side, where Each colored line
represents a mission
the terrain had been studied since 1973 that stud-
extensively by lunar orbiters and ied a celestial body.
Mission Control could remain in Lines are arranged in
chronological order
direct contact with the astronauts. from the object out- Earth
Space agencies have sent probes, ward. Dotted lines
with no people on them and thus are failed missions.
no need to worry about human Mission Origin

safety, to visit far-flung places in U.S.
U.S.S.R./Russia
the solar system. Spacecraft have Europe
explored 60 other moons and even U.S./Europe
Japan
set down on one, Saturn’s Titan. China
On our own moon, robotic rovers Germany
India
have left tracks at four sites. Israel
China made history earlier
this year by setting its Chang’e 4
lander on the moon’s far side.
The first private lander to reach
the moon crashed in April, but the
Israeli nonprofit behind it quickly
announced plans to try again. LIFE ON MARS?
A procession of robotic craft have
Not to be outdone, the U.S. explored Mars from all angles,
intends to send a series of landers discovering a world that was once
with technology to lay the ground- much wetter and warmer—and
might even have supported life.
work for astronauts to return.
OBJECT SIZES AND ORBITAL DISTANCES ARE NOT TO SCALE.

L I V I NG A N D WOR K I NG W H I L E OR B I T I NG EA RT H
International crews have continued to conduct research on Earth-orbiting stations, while
for 30 years NASA’s reusable space shuttles carried crew and cargo on a variety of missions.
Duration of program Origin

ed the moon in 1972. SALYUT: 6 space stations/48 visitors U.S.S.R. INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION: 1/ 236
h stations orbiting Earth SKYLAB: 1/9 SPACE SHUTTLE: 135 missions/355 crew and passengers TIANGONG: 2/ 7
ther into space to take U.S. U.S. MIR: 1/ 104 China
U.S.S.R./ Russia
solar system up close. 1971 1980 1990 2000 2010 April
2019
ASTEROID BELT OUTER SOLAR SYTEM

Phoebe
THE MOON AND ITS PROSPECTS TURBULENT JUPITER 2 K U I P E R B E LT
Space companies are determining The first missions to the planet Reaching the most distant bodies
Iapetus
whether there’s money to be made revealed a ball of violent, 3 in our solar system, the New
on Earth’s nearest neighbor through swirling gases. Some of Jupiter’s Horizons spacecraft was the first
projects like mining, commercial moons have been studied for Hyperion to visit Pluto; it then flew on to
travel, and colonization. the potential to harbor life. 3 explore Ultima Thule.
Moon Titan
Callisto Oberon
25 4
4
Rhea Titania
3
Ganymede
Umbriel
5 Helene
3 Ariel Hydra
Europa Dione Miranda Nereid Kerberos
5 3
Calypso Puck Triton Nix

Io 2
5 Perdita Proteus Styx
Telesto
2
Thebe Belinda Larissa Charon
Tethys
3
Amalthea Rosalind Galatea
3 Enceladus
Deimos Portia Despina
3
Metis
Phobos Pallene Juliet Thalassa
6 Adrastea
Methone Naiad
Pluto
Desdemona
Jupiter Mimas
Cressida
1
3
Mars 8 Janus Bianca
30 2
Epimetheus Ophelia Ultima
2 Thule
Neptune
Cordelia
Pandora
2 1 1
Prometheus
2
Atlas
2
Saturn Uranus Halley’s
Asteroids Daphnis comet
11 4 Pan 1
5
ASTEROID ENCOUNTERS SAT U R N S O J O U R N HALLEY’S COMET
Filled with protoplanetary bodies, Few missions have visited On an eccentric orbit that
the asteroid belt holds clues to how the planet, but Cassini travels past Neptune, Halley
our solar system and planets formed. arrived in 2004 and returns to the inner solar system
Probes have visited and collected explored for 13 years; data every 76 years. Various craft Comets
samples from asteroids. are still being processed. studied its last visit, in 1986.
11
NGM ART. MATTHEW TWOMBLY; ALEXANDER STEGMAIER. SOURCES: NASA; ASIF SIDDIQI, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY;
JONATHAN M CDOWELL, HARVARD-SMITHSONIAN CENTER FOR ASTROPHYSICS; USGS ASTROGEOLOGY SCIENCE CENTER
T MINUS
WHAT WE TOOK
ASTRONAUTS COLLECTED ROCKS,
LEFT: A piece of Lunar
Sample 15016, a form PEBBLES, SOIL, AND DUST. THEY
of basalt, is preserved ALSO TOOK PERSONAL ITEMS TO
in a stainless steel cab-
inet filled with flowing, SPACE THAT REFLECTED THEIR
purified nitrogen gas. INTERESTS, BELIEFS, AND PASSIONS.
NASA JOHNSON SPACE CENTER

ver four years, NASA One of NASA’s most

requested space pho-
O astronauts hauled 842 tos, this view of Earth,
pounds of moon rocks known as Blue Marble,
back to Earth. But the most pro- was taken in 1972 from
about 18,000 miles
found souvenirs weigh nothing: away, as Apollo 17 was
images of Earth. Apollo 8 astro- traveling to the moon.
naut William Anders snapped NASA JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
an iconic one on Christmas Eve TOP LEFT

in 1968, showing our blue planet Aboard Gemini 6,
suspended in darkness near the Walter Schirra tootled
“Jingle Bells” on this
moon’s sterile, cratered horizon. harmonica as Thomas
Astronauts didn’t just take pho- Stafford shook sleigh
tos and collect moon rocks, they bells, making the first
music in space on
also carried an array of objects December 16, 1965.
from Earth into space with them. SMITHSONIAN’S NATIONAL AIR AND
SPACE MUSEUM
John Young (Gemini 3) notori-
ously smuggled aboard a corned BOTTOM LEFT
beef sandwich and shared it After landing on the

moon, Buzz Aldrin
with Gus Grissom, his crewmate. drank consecrated
Grissom pocketed it when crumbs wine from this three-
began to float around the cabin. inch goblet, which is
still used by his former
Buzz Aldrin (Apollo 11) took church near Houston.
wine, bread, and a chalice to cele- WEBSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
brate Communion. His crewmate

Neil Armstrong carried a piece of
the Wright Flyer’s wooden propel-
ler. Alan Shepard (Apollo 14) used
a sock to hide a six-iron clubhead,
which he attached to a tool handle
to hit two golf balls on the moon.
Charles Duke (Apollo 16) packed
a family photo and left it in the
Descartes highlands.
Perhaps the most poignant
memento on the lunar surface is
a small aluminum human figure,
placed there by David Scott during
Apollo 15. It rests near a placard
bearing the names of 14 fallen
astronauts and cosmonauts.
T MINUS
IN POP CULTURE FROM TV SHOWS TO MOVIES,

RIGHT: In 1967 Mattel
introduced Major Matt TOYS, FOOD, AND THE WAY
Mason, one of the first WE EXPRESS OURSELVES,
realistic space action
figures. His suit was SPACE CONTINUES TO HAVE A
based on a prototype. HOLD ON OUR IMAGINATION.

s the space race boomed, high-tops. We’ve had Star Trek,

A it catapulted its aspira- The Jetsons, Mork & Mindy, Star
tions into the zeitgeist— Wars, and the current spate of
and transformed the way we live. Mars movies and space-themed
Sputnik inspired replicas and TV shows. Also: the Houston
songs. Life magazine published Astros and the Houston Rockets,
exclusive stories on the lives of Space Camp, antigravity ballpoint
the celebrated Mercury Seven, pens, astronaut ice cream, the
the United States’ first astronauts. moonwalk, and Space Mountain.
Seattle built the Space Needle for Concepts like “the right stuff,”
the World’s Fair. Stanley Kubrick “moon shot,” and “light-years”
created 2001: A Space Odyssey. The figure into everyday conversation.
space age flourished in movies, Your first day back after vacation
TV, music, architecture, and might be filled with “reentry”
design, where the sleek, aerody- problems. Your craft-brewed IPA
namic lines of rockets inspired the might taste like “rocket fuel” or
look of cars and trains. even use those words as its name.
Space is still lodged in popular And, on discovering a distressing
culture. The NASA logo appears situation, you might calmly say,
everywhere, from tattoos to Vans “Houston, we have a problem.”
LEFT
The January 10, 1967, LEFT

issue of Look maga- RIGHT AB OVE
Project Mercury, which
zine featured this Nor- In Russia cosmonauts rocketed U.S. astro- Billed as “the first space
man Rockwell painting are often depicted nauts to space six age–inspired car,”
of how it might look on memorabilia. This times from 1961 to 1963, the Firebird III, built
when Neil Armstrong poster, headlined inspired many objects by General Motors,
set foot on the moon. “World’s First,” heralds that celebrated the was powered by a gas
Rockwell, a stickler for the 20th anniversary of historic achievement. turbine engine and
accuracy, consulted Valentina Tereshkova’s This metal lunch box sported seven fins.
experts and collabo- solo flight in 1963, when shows an accurate cut- The 1958 concept car
rated with a space art- the 26-year-old former away view of the cone- had a computer, elec-
ist to create this vision. textile worker and sky- shaped, single-seat tronic controls, and a
© 1967 ARTWORK COURTESY diver became the first Mercury capsule. joystick to accelerate,
THE NORMAN ROCKWELL FAMILY
AGENCY/SMITHSONIAN’S NATIONAL
woman in space. PRIVATE COLLECTION OF SUSAN N.
brake, and steer.
AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM DAVID POLLACK, GETTY IMAGES FREEMAN GENERAL MOTORS HERITAGE CENTER
LIFTOFF!
WHAT’S NEXT
IT MAY SEEM AS IF WE’VE BEEN
LEFT: Virgin Galactic’s
VSS Unity, shown in GOING NOWHERE FOR DECADES.
2015, has flown higher BUT A NEW AGE OF SPACE TRAVEL
than 50 miles, the dis-
tance NASA considers IS COMING, MIXING EXPLORATION
the beginning of space. WITH A RACE FOR PROFITS.
BY SAM HOWE VERHOVEK PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAN WINTERS

hen human beings stepped on the moon

50 years ago this month, it was one of
history’s most astounding moments, and
not just because our first visit to another
W world was among humanity’s greatest

scientific achievements or because it
was the culmination of an epic race
between two global superpowers, though
both were true. The New York Times
put a poem by Archibald MacLeish on
the front page, and newscaster Walter
Cronkite, “the most trusted man in America,” would come to say that
people living 500 years in the future would regard the lunar landing
as “the most important feat of all time.” ¶ The ultimate significance,
however, was not that the race had ended or even that a once unimag-
inable milestone had been attained. ¶ This achievement was really
just the beginning. ¶ The beginning of a new era in humanity’s vision
of its horizons, of the places we could explore and might even inhabit.
Having started as a landfaring species, expanded our reach to the entire
planet when we became seafaring, and conquered the atmosphere
above Earth when powered flight made us skyfarers, we were now
destined to be pilgrims in a vast new realm. We were spacefarers—and
soon, as this seminal triumph helped us get over what celebrated sci-
entist and writer Isaac Asimov called our “planetary chauvinism,” we
would become an extraplanetary species. “Earthlings” would no lon-
ger be sufficient to describe who we were. ¶ All this is what was widely
expected, amid the euphoria and wonder on July 20, 1969, when Eagle,
Apollo 11’s lunar module, touched down on the moon’s surface. The
greatest journey starts with a single step. A small step for one man; a
giant leap for all of humankind. ¶ The head of the U.S. National Aero-
nautics and Space Administration, Thomas O. Paine, was soon aiming
for Mars, and not just as a someday goal but with a detailed itinerary
laid out in National Geographic. Depart: October 3, 1983. Crew of 12,
split between two 250-foot-long spacecraft fired by nuclear rockets.
Enter Mars orbit: June 9, 1984. Eighty days of exploration on the Mar-
tian surface. Return to Earth orbit: May 25, 1985. ¶ The very act of reach-
ing the moon somehow exalted the human race, yielding confidence
that we would indeed push deeper into space. “Wherever we went,
people, instead of saying, ‘Well, you Americans did it,’ everywhere they
said, ‘We did it!’ ” recalled Michael Collins, the pilot of Apollo 11’s com-
mand module. “We humankind, we the human race, we people did it.”
The weather on Mars

can vary dramatically,
requiring a space suit
that makes it possible
for astronauts to
venture out into tem-
peratures as low as
minus 80°F and as high
as 70°F. Under devel-
opment by a lab at
the University of North
Dakota with funding
from NASA, this exper-
imental suit is made
from 350 components.
NASA KENNEDY SPACE CENTER
unrise is still a few hours away, and as Because the Voyagers could travel forever into
S the bus cuts a lonely path through the void and both the sun and the Earth have
miles of remote steppe in southern an expiration date (don’t worry, it’s a ways off),
Kazakhstan, its headlights occasionally illumi- it’s conceivable that one day these sedan-size
nate for the briefest of moments a giant faded eternal sojourners will be the only evidence that
mural or a chipped tile mosaic. These stylized we ever existed. Yet it’s also conceivable that a
works of art show the ravages of baking summers successor species to us will have long gone inter-
and bitter winters. They adorn huge, rusting, stellar by then, hopefully granting us some rec-
abandoned buildings, and they celebrate the ognition for their feat.
decades-old glories of a space program in a And if they do, they may well point to this
nation that no longer exists: the Soviet Union. moment in time—the late 2010s, the early
Finally, after miles of this Twilight Zone land- 2020s—as the “inflection shift,” which is how
scape of Cold War detritus, the bus makes a Jim Keravala, a physicist who has overseen sat-
sudden turn down a gated lane and arrives at a ellite launches on Russian, European, and U.S.
giant, banged-up structure that is definitely not rockets, characterizes the frenzy of activity in
abandoned. Well-armed Russian and Kazakh the commercial space industry today.
security officers in camouflage gear seem to We are, Keravala says, at the dawn of “the
have the place surrounded, and it’s bathed in true beginning of the era of space settlement
floodlights. Inside this hangar is a gleaming and humanity’s future off-world.” (Keravala
new rocket ship. now heads OffWorld, a company that intends to
I’ve come to the Baikonur Cosmodrome deploy millions of robots to turn the inner solar
because, just shy of the 50th anniversary of the system into a “better, gentler, greener place for
moon landing, it’s the only place on the planet life and civilization.”)
where I can watch a human blast off to space. In Keravala’s intriguing prediction is highly
turn, the only place in the universe these peo- debatable, in part because that old industry
ple can fly to is the International Space Station, chestnut—“space is hard”—happens to be true;
some 250 miles above Earth, which is barely setbacks and delays are virtually always part of
one-thousandth of the distance to the moon. the march to progress.
For the past eight years, ever since NASA But it’s undeniable that something big is
retired the space shuttle, the only way it has going on in space. Two U.S. companies, SpaceX
been able to get an American astronaut to the and Boeing, are moving closer to certification of
space station has been to hitch a ride with its their spaceship models, putting NASA “on the
Russian counterpart, known as Roscosmos, at precipice of launching American astronauts on
roughly $82 million for a seat up and back down. American rockets from American soil,” in the
Fifty years on from the moon landing, this words of NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine.
is where we are in space, if by “we,” we mean These ships—which are to Apollo’s cramped
human beings. Which sure sounds like basically modules as a Boeing 787 Dreamliner is to a
nowhere, at least as measured by the yardstick prop-driven airliner of the 1950s—may carry
of 1969’s great expectations. Twelve people— out crewed missions by late this year or early
all Americans, all men—have stepped on the next year.
moon, none since 1972, and other than on Earth- Meanwhile, spacecraft built for two other pri-
orbiting space stations, no human has set foot vate companies, Virgin Galactic and Blue Ori-
anywhere else in the universe. gin, have also made major strides, bringing us
Measured another way, of course, we’re doing ever closer to a novel era of space tourism. To
extraordinary things in space. begin, they will shoot well-heeled customers up
We’ve sent uncrewed probes to explore all to an elevation of 60-odd miles, to the edge of
the other planets in our solar system, yielding outer space, where the clientele will experience
astonishing photographs and troves of data. zero-gravity weightlessness and see the black
The twin Voyager spacecraft have literally void of the universe and the blue curvature
sped across the solar system and into interstel- of the Earth. All this can be yours for a mere
lar space, the first human-made objects ever $200,000 or so at present—though both com-
to do so. They’re more than 11 billion miles away panies say prices will drop rapidly and options
and still communicating with us. expand as they bring more rocket ships on line.
GETTING INTO ORBIT

In the 1950s the Soviet Union and the U.S. built the first launch sites. Other countries
followed in the 1970s. Today Rocket Lab has the only private site, but others are under
construction. Many of the 22 active ports are in the southern regions of countries
because Earth’s surface rotates faster near the Equator, giving launches a boost.
Pacific
Spaceport
Complex Plesetsk RUSSIA
NORTH Yasny
A S I A
AMERICA Vostochny
KAZAKHSTAN N. KOREA
EUROPE
Baikonur Taiyuan
UNITED
Sohae JAPAN
STATES Wallops Flight Jiuquan
IRAN Naro Uchinoura
Vandenberg Facility/Mid-Atlantic CHINA
Air Force Base Palmachim Imam Xichang
Regional Spaceport ISRAEL Tanegashima
Khomeini S. KOREA
Cape Canaveral
INDIA
PACIFIC Wenchang
A F R I C A
OCEAN Satish Dhawan
Guiana Reagan Test Site
MARSHALL
FRENCH ISLANDS
GUIANA EQUATOR
LAUNCHES BY
SPACEPORT (France)
ATLANTIC PACIFIC
Over 1,000 SOUTH
AMERICA O CE A N OCEAN
launches
INDIAN
100–1,000 OCEAN
10–99
AUSTRALIA
1–9
Rocket Lab
Human sent Launch
into orbit Complex
NEW ZEALAND
Blue Origin is also shaking up the race to put land “taikonauts,” as its astronauts are known,
humans back on the moon, announcing in May on the lunar surface.
that it’s building a lander named Blue Moon. In Israel, which sees itself as a plucky “start-up
The robotic vehicle will be able to haul up to nation,” there were both cheers and tears in
seven tons of cargo and could put astronauts April, when a nonprofit consortium called
on the lunar surface by 2024. SpaceIL made history as the first private concern
The action in space is hardly confined to to orbit the moon. But its bid to make Israel the
American companies or Russia’s program. In fourth country to soft-land an object there had
January, China boasted that it “opened a new a hard ending: SpaceIL’s small spacecraft called
chapter” in lunar exploration by soft-landing Beresheet (Hebrew for Genesis, or “in the begin-
an uncrewed spaceship on the far side of the ning”) instead crashed on the lunar surface and
moon, the first time a vehicle had ever touched
down there. That spacecraft deployed a rover
bearing a “mini-biosphere,” designed to test NEXT PHOTO ground, rather than
whether fruit flies and a variety of plants and A technician installs on water, it has para-
seeds can work together to create food in components on the chutes to brake its
CST-100 Starliner, a new descent and airbags
lunar conditions. China announced in April capsule engineered by to cushion its landing.
that it intends to build a research station on Boeing that can carry Each capsule will be
the moon’s south polar region within the next as many as five passen- able to be used up to
gers to the International 10 times. Boeing plans
decade, although the nation’s space agency Space Station. Designed a crewed test launch
remains mum about how soon it might try to to set down on the within a year.
ACTIVE PORTS WITH AT LEAST ONE ORBITAL SPACE LAUNCH BETWEEN 2008 AND 2018 SHOWN.
SOREN WALLJASPER, NGM STAFF. SOURCE: THOMAS G. ROBERTS, CSIS AEROSPACE SECURITY PROJECT 85
lost contact with mission control. space to tap its unlimited resources and energy”
In remote New Zealand, from a launchpad (Blue Origin, Bezos’s company). “We open access
adjacent to a giant sheep pasture, a company to space to improve life on Earth” (Rocket Lab).
called Rocket Lab is sending innovative, low-cost “Imagine most journeys taking less than 30 min-
rockets bearing satellites into low Earth orbit. utes, with access to anywhere in the world in an
At the edge of Dubai, where Emirates air- hour or less” (SpaceX, brainchild of billionaire
line has forged a massive global crossroads Elon Musk, who says space travel will make such
for air travelers out of once empty desert, an Earth-to-Earth trips feasible).
entirely new and even more colossal airport Why are we in space? Fifty years ago, it was
under construction is being billed as the world’s easy to answer the question. To reach the moon!
first “cosmotropolis.” Authorities say it will be Sure, discovery, generally; and national prestige,
capable of handling rocket ships and hyper- specifically. To issue a grand proclamation of
and supersonic aircraft as well as conventional goodwill: “We came in peace for all mankind.”
jet airliners. Everybody knew the point was to step on the
And in Japan, JAXA, the official space agency, moon, return safely, and crow about it.
announced in March that it was working with Ask that question today, however, and you
Toyota to develop a crewed moon rover that may get any of a dozen answers. These are worth
would enable astronauts to travel 6,000 miles examining, because you can’t explore whether
on the lunar surface. we should be in space without a sense of what
we are doing there—or aiming to do.
uch of today’s rocketry is fueled by an
M intense competition among a few utside the hangar in Kazakhstan, I step
superbillionaires whose ambitions (and O off the bus along with the rest of my
egos) appear to be out of this world. group—a large crop of reporters,
Their spacecraft are different from yesteryear’s mostly Russians and a few Canadians. We stand
because they are not being developed purely around and stomp our feet for a while, as it’s
for scientific exploration. These spacecraft are cold on this early December day—seven degrees
intended to make money by fulfilling the expen- Fahrenheit with a rattling wind that has a well-
sive wishes of wannabe astronauts or harvesting below-zero feel to it.
valuable resources through mining on asteroids; We are at the edge of a security barrier—
by flying people quickly between any two points my group on this side, wielding cameras and
on Earth; and indeed, as Keravala suggests, by notebooks, the security guys on the other side,
ultimately making us a multiplanetary species. gripping guns and speaking purposefully into
Many of these space titans have a clear vision walkie-talkies tucked into the shoulders of their
of where they’re taking the rest of us, but col- uniforms. The rocket ship is on its side on a flat-
lectively we have barely begun to discuss the bed railcar, four conical boosters at the base of a
ethics—or wisdom—of it all. If, as the relent- white cylinder, with a brightly painted Russian
less evangelist for space and commerce Jeff flag at the top. As it sounds a low whistle, the
Bezos has insisted, the solar system can easily train slowly pulls out, headed to the launchpad
support “a trillion humans,” among whom we a few miles away.
would have “a thousand Einsteins and a thou- There’s some drama to the launch because
sand Mozarts,” should we then heed the Amazon the previous one, in October, was aborted just
founder’s call to go forth and multiply in the fir- 57 miles up when a sensor malfunction prompted
mament? (And if so, will Amazon Prime deliver?) the crew capsule to separate from the rocket and
At the same time, there is something very curi- booster assembly. NASA astronaut Nick Hague
ous about the lofty slogans, visions, and mission and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin averted
statements that private space companies feature disaster with a harrowing emergency landing.
in their promotional materials: Many contend “The crew was lucky,” Anne McClain, an
that going to space is actually about … saving the Army lieutenant colonel, Iraq war veteran, and
Earth—and making it a better place. helicopter pilot, explained in a NASA-TV news
“We open space to change the world for good” conference. “But every crew that makes it to
(Virgin Galactic, founded by billionaire Richard orbit is lucky. Spaceflight’s not easy.”
Branson). “To preserve Earth … we must go to McClain should know: A NASA astronaut,
drop back down to three. The other 7.6 billion

Much of today’s rocketry or so of us? We’re still earthbound.
is fueled by an intense oon, however, the United States could

S
competition among have not one but two American-made
options for getting astronauts to space,
a few superbillionaires finally severing NASA’s sole dependence on Rus-

sian Soyuz rockets. These new spaceships are a
whose ambitions are not first step toward much longer range missions: to
the moon, to asteroids, and even to Mars.
purely scientific: Their And so, a few months after the surprisingly
moving, even mystical experience of watch-
spacecraft are intended ing the Soyuz liftoff, I find myself some 170
feet above the ground on a gorgeous blue-sky
to make money. Florida day, the Atlantic Ocean sparkling a half
mile away.
I’m at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, atop
Space Launch Complex 41, whose history dates
to 1965, when it began launching Titan rockets
she’s on the launch I’m at the Cosmodrome to see. for the space programs that preceded Apollo.
Now Roscosmos says the problem is fixed It’s eventually going to launch Boeing’s CST-100
and this Soyuz rocket launch will be trouble Starliner capsule, which will carry as many as
free. And indeed, from behind a glass wall in a five passengers at a time to the International
special quarantine zone, McClain and the other Space Station.
two crew members are telling us—in English, The first thing I notice after stepping off the
in Russian, and in French—that they share that elevator are four parallel zip lines leading to the
faith. Thumbs-up all around. A Russian Ortho- ground at the very edge of the launch complex.
dox priest, as is customary these days, blesses “If you’re an astronaut, you really, really don’t
the crew and the ship with holy water in two want to be taking that ride,” says Tony Tal-
brief but solemn ceremonies; he even blesses iancich, director and general manager of launch
the assembled reporters, a touch I cannot help operations for ULA, a launch alliance that is a
but appreciate in this era of relentless attacks joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
on the free press. Taliancich, imposingly built but perpetually
At Baikonur, reporters witness a launch from smiling during my tour of his bailiwick, explains
a distance of just under a mile, which is signifi- that these 1,300-foot-long zip lines are a critical
cantly closer than at Cape Canaveral, where they part of the escape system, in case a last-minute
are kept about three miles away. It’s a mesmer- explosion, fire, or other emergency provokes an
izing and profound spectacle: the huge burst of abandon-ship order.
orange flame at the rocket’s base on ignition, They bring to mind the fire that erupted in the
the engine roar, the rumbling, shaking ground. cabin of the Apollo 1 spacecraft in January 1967,
The awe I feel is intensified by the knowledge a tragedy that quickly claimed the lives of three
that at the very tip of the ship, three of my fellow astronauts at Launch Complex 34 near here, now
human beings are trusting that all will be well as a memorial site honoring the men “who made the
they are shot straight up into the sky. ultimate sacrifice so others could reach the stars.”
The number of human beings living in space is They’re also a useful reminder: Despite the
about to double—from three to six. In less than strides NASA has made in its perpetual quest
three weeks the three already at the space sta- to make spaceflight safer, it’s still a dangerous
tion would come home, and the human census business. Our astronauts are essentially stepping
beyond Earth’s atmosphere—on the moon, on on top of a bomb whenever they climb into the
all the other planets in the solar system, on all capsule of a spacecraft, a bomb they trust will
those other moons, on asteroids, and in or on go off in a controlled manner.
the many things that humankind has built and Of the 135 space shuttle flights, two ended
launched into orbit over six decades—would in disaster, claiming seven lives each. If we
accepted that failure rate in the commercial

airliners we rely on in this country, we’d be tol- Thomas O. Paine,
erating more than 500 crashes every day.
Taliancich, who spent much of his career in NASA’s chief in 1969,
Air Force space-launch operations, shows me
where the Starliner crew capsule will fit and thought we’d have set
points out the entryway into a sealed chamber
that will ensure the cabin remains pristine when
foot on Mars and the
the astronauts enter it.
I’d seen a Starliner an hour or so earlier in a
moons of Jupiter by now.
nearby assembly plant. More accurately, I’d seen
the upper and lower halves of the conical cap-
His prediction still may
sule without their outer heat-shielding shells,
revealing the mind-boggling spaghetti mix of
come true—by the 100th
tubes, wires, and electrical cables that go into
a spacecraft.
anniversary of Apollo 11.
With improved seats and larger windows, as
well as interior LED “mood lighting,” this space-
craft’s cabin is clearly a 21st-century upgrade
from an Apollo capsule. While the lighting fea- counters that it incentivizes private industry
ture sounds a bit whimsical, it’s anything but. to speed up capabilities for a crewed land-
Eventually, advanced lighting may help regulate ing, and he frequently invokes the frenemy
astronauts’ circadian rhythms and sleep cycles of comic character Charlie Brown to make his
as well as their emotions, one of several critical case that the path to Mars is genuine: “This is
challenges that must be overcome before NASA not Lucy and the football anymore,” he says.
or any other space agency can send humans on The Starliner—or the SpaceX version, called
the months-long trip to Mars. Crew Dragon, or both—may well be the future
of human space exploration.
ust when will that Mars trip finally Still, let’s return to Earth and reiterate a few
J occur? things about where we are today.
NASA does not have a specific time- We’re manifestly not where many thought
line for human exploration of the red planet. In we’d be 50 years on, and certainly not where
the meantime, the focus is on sending astro- NASA’s Paine said we could be, which was not
nauts back to the moon as a way to test both only Mars but also the moons of Jupiter and
human and spacecraft capabilities. who knows where else. We’re not even back on
“The moon is the proving ground; Mars is the the moon. Paine, who died in 1992, believed that
horizon goal,” NASA’s Bridenstine said in March thousands of us would be enjoying lunar vaca-
during a presentation at Cape Canaveral unveil- tions in his lifetime.
ing the space agency’s proposed budget. “There’s no question we can reduce the cost
To establish a presence on the moon, astro- of travel to the moon to the cost of traveling
nauts will need to look at ways of extracting through air today,” Paine told Time magazine
water, oxygen, and helium—as fuel for human shortly before the Apollo 11 landing.
and machine alike. (Helium-3, a gas thought to It’s certainly possible that the big predictions
exist in significant quantities there, could be used of 1969 will come true—but closer to the 100th
for future nuclear fusion–propelled rockets.) The anniversary of the lunar landing, with this
moon could also wind up as a staging ground for half-centennial milestone marking the begin-
launches to elsewhere: Since it has only one-sixth ning of Space Age 2.0.
of Earth’s gravity, much less energy is needed to Musk, who says he intends to move to Mars
send a ship beyond the moon’s pull than here someday, is the most aggressive on a time frame.
on our planet. He’s pegged 2024 for a crewed SpaceX space-
Space-exploration advocates are unhappy ship to land on Martian soil, a projection widely
with the budget, saying it provides for a too- dismissed as hopelessly—or recklessly—opti-
slow timetable for getting to Mars. Bridenstine mistic. In April a U.S. government–mandated
independent analysis concluded that it was PRIVATE PUBLIC

REVENUE FUNDING
“infeasible under all budget scenarios and tech- $307.3 billion $80.6 billion
$20.7B
nology development and testing schedules” for Products/services Dept. of United States
NASA to send humans to Mars before 2034. Other Infrastructure Defense Other
Mars advocates say the early 2040s is more like it.

$97.6B Revenues
Landing and exploring: doable. But, to be Satellite remain steady
television despite com-
clear, many experts consider bold projections
petition from
of celestial living to be, pardon the pun, lunacy. $19.7
streaming NASA
I ran into Bill Nye, the popular and pithy services.
Science Guy of television fame and CEO of the

Planetary Society, at a space conference last
$8.6
year in Washington, D.C., and he rolled his eyes China
(estimated)
at the idea that Mars will eventually be “terra- China’s space
formed” for human habitation. budget isn’t
public; nations $7.0
“It’s incredibly cold, there’s hardly any water, spend about Military,
$85.8 .07 percent of excluding U.S.
there’s no food, and by the way, there’s nothing Ground GDP on space.
to breathe,” Nye said. “And the smell in your stations and
$6.6
equipment
European
space suit—bring all the Febreze you can pack, Space
because you’re going to be craving it on Mars.” Agency
Hardware
(Nye does favor missions to the red planet, just on Earth is $3.1
Russia
not permanent habitation.) needed to
interact with $2.2
spacecraft and NOAA
he other thing to reiterate: Anything we transmissions.
$2.1
T can do, our robots can do better (in France
space, that is), with the exception of $1.8

$81.9 EC*
capturing the majesty of what’s there as only an Geolocation, $1.6
artist or poet could. We’ve done amazing things navigation, and Demand is Japan
timekeeping expected to $1.4
in space without sending people there, and not rise as more
India
smartphones
just because we’ve launched all those satellites and auto- $1.4
Italy
into orbit that have propelled quantum leaps in mated cars
are produced. Germany
how we communicate, navigate, prognosticate— South Korea
on the weather, anyway—and do countless other NSF
The U.K. saw the
things here on Earth. $23.2 Sweden
highest growth
Satellite Other countries
Probes keep sending back detailed images, commu-
in government
spending in EUMETSAT†
and soon we will be launching a telescope into nications Canada
2017, at almost
Other depts.‡
space so powerful that it will enable us to peer at 98 percent.
U.K.
faraway objects whose light originated billions Israel
$6.8 Spain
of years ago. This may help us answer questions Satellite $53 million
manufacture Poland
about the early universe and perhaps even locate
life elsewhere in the cosmos.
Those remarkable twin Voyager probes,
$5.4
Satellite SPACE INC.
TAKES OFF
radio
launched in 1977 and fueled by tiny nuclear- $3.4
powered generators, are still returning data Earth
observation
about the environment around them, sent by a The space economy is predicted
Satellite launch to more than triple between 2017
radio transmitter that uses about as much power and 2040, with revenues exceed-
Insurance
as a standard light bulb. That makes for a faint premiums ing a trillion dollars. Business
signal, but here on Earth we can “hear” what the ventures, which make up nearly
$10 million 80 percent of the industry, are
Voyagers have to say because we’ve developed Tourist
expected to grow rapidly. Com-
spaceflight
antennas sensitive enough to pick up the signal. deposits mercial satellites and those for
“Amazing” strikes me as far too limited a word military, scientific, and other pur-
poses are getting smaller, more
to describe our most far-flung emissaries, which effective, and cheaper to launch.
indeed are diplomats in that they each carry the
legendary “Golden Record” of earthly sounds, DAISY CHUNG AND KAYA BERNE, NGM STAFF. SOURCE: SPACE FOUNDATION
* EUROPEAN COMMISSION
† EUROPEAN ORGANISATION FOR THE EXPLOITATION OF METEOROLOGICAL SATELLITES
‡ INCLUDES FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION AND DEPARTMENTS OF ENERGY,
INTERIOR, AND AGRICULTURE
To excavate, haul,
and dump the layer
of dust and rocks found
on the surface of the
moon, NASA designed
a mobile robotic plat-
form called RASSOR,
shown here at the
Kennedy Space Center.
To operate in a low-
gravity environment,
it has counter-rotating
bucket drums that
are not dependent
on traction or weight.
music from around the world, and greetings the most iconic images it yielded were not those
from Jimmy Carter (the U.S. president at launch of the moon or the other planets, but the ones
time) to inform and entertain any sentient aliens of our own planet. “Earthrise,” our serene-look-
that might encounter them. ing blue orb swaddled in swirling clouds over
That the Voyagers are still hurtling through the moon’s horizon, is the most famous. These
the heavens illustrates a serious point. photographs galvanized the environmental
Humans simply couldn’t make this trip. With movement, spurred new laws to clean our water
our nettlesome need for air and food and water, and air, and prompted a lot of people to ask a
protection from cosmic radiation or solar flares, simple question: “Shouldn’t we be spending all
not to mention stimulation so we don’t go mad that money to fix our own problems first?”
on the long journey to wherever, it’s worth ask- The “all that money” part referred to the space
ing: Why go at all? Why go, especially when there program, which in some years consumed 4.5 per-
is basically nothing to be done that a robotic cent of the federal budget. (Today NASA’s budget
probe cannot do more efficiently, quickly, is half of one percent.) Getting men and women
cheaply, and safely than a human being? Let’s to Mars before now could easily have cost at least
face the truth: From mining asteroids for rare that much, so there’s a pretty good case to be
materials to snapping photos of other planets, made that we’ve been right to take a pass so far.
uncrewed probes are better suited to the job. We’re now entering that second space age, in
which relentless innovations such as reusable
et this raises the question of whether rockets are driving down the cost of getting
Y it’s important for us to explore. No there. It will surely prove much less expensive
uncrewed journey—even one of billions to get to Mars in another decade or three than it
of miles—will ever generate quite the thrill, sus- would be today, and certainly less than it would
pense, or awe of a man putting the first footprint have been in the 1980s. That’s a good bargain,
on our nearby moon—or a woman doing so even if those of us who watched Neil Armstrong
someday on Mars. (The next American to step on kick up a little moondust never dreamed that it
the moon, Bridenstine says, will likely be a would take that long.
woman.) If members of the human species are How much longer remains the wild card.
driven to scale Mount Everest or slog to the poles, A serious accident or tragedy in any space
isn’t there an inevitable urge onward to Mars and venture tends to set back all of them, sometimes
beyond? It’s … you know … what we do. by years. Funding is hardly bottomless: For the
“There’s a fundamental truth to our nature: moment, for instance, plans for asteroid mining
Man must explore,” Apollo 15 commander seem to have stalled a bit. It may or may not be
David R. Scott radioed in 1971 to ground control true that (as the industry’s cheerleaders con-
in Houston from his spot near Hadley Rille, a tend) there’s a trillion dollars or more to be har-
valley on the moon. “And this is exploration at vested from rare minerals out in space, but what
its greatest.” if it takes $100 billion or $200 billion to develop
There’s also the matter of what some futurists the technology to try to find out? That’s a lot of
call an “insurance policy” for the survival of the money to wager that your unicorn will come in.
species and others call our Plan B in case Earth Finally, space has a dark side, and not just the
itself were to become uninhabitable. That could vast empty blackness that astronauts who have
happen through a force beyond our control, like been through it describe. With the United States,
the asteroid that seems to have annihilated the China, and Russia all developing space weap-
dinosaurs, or by our own folly, through nuclear onry (for defensive purposes, all three insist),
war or drastic derangement of our climate. we could find ourselves fighting a future war in
We’ve been worried about Plan A, and that’s a space, launching missiles, destroying satellites,
good thing, because it’s by far the best plan we and training powerful laser weapons on earth-
have, and it may be the only one. As the environ- bound targets, including people.
mental activist and author Bill McKibben puts
it, the least hospitable patch of Earth is still far n my way to the Soyuz rocket launch in
more hospitable to human life than any reach- O Kazakhstan, I stopped first in Moscow
able spot we have found anywhere else. to meet with a few cosmonauts and
The central irony of the first space age was that visit some museums, because it’s hard to
We’re entering a second in protecting the Earth. (Indeed, two cosmo-

nauts gave me books they had written—not
space age, in which on space, but on protecting our environment.)

Second, even while strongly favoring human
innovations such as space exploration, they think the idea of perma-

nent, widespread human colonization of space
reusable rockets are is bonkers.
“It’s not … pleasant, actually,” Viktor Savinykh
driving down the cost of said after a long pause when I asked him about
living in space.
getting to Mars. The wild Savinykh, 79, is famous in Russia for his role
in the daring repair of a crippled, ice-encrusted,
card: How much longer and dangerously out-of-orbit Salyut space sta-
tion in 1985. “You get disoriented so easily, you
will it take to get there? can’t remember things up there,” he continued.
“It’s really hard on the brain. All that sun in your
eyes. It’s hard to describe. Your body weakens.”
Still, he acknowledged that Bezos’s vision
could come to pass someday.
appreciate how NASA’s astronauts got to the “I don’t have the answers to this,” Savinykh
moon without understanding the challenge told me. “The new generation and then the next
posed by the Soviet space program that spurred and then the next—they will get to decide. We
them there. did our part.”
Americans tend to view the push to the lunar Those generations are certainly going to ask
landing as they would, say, a football game. intriguing questions. Toward the end of the space
Nobody really remembers or cares who was conference I’d attended in Washington, a panel of
ahead during most of the contest; the important U.S. astronauts fielded videotaped queries sent
thing is who won, even if they had to come from in by schoolkids from around the world.
three touchdowns behind to do it. By that score, “Is it possible,” a five-year-old boy from Balti-
the U.S. triumphed. End of story. more named Braith Ortenzi wanted to know, “to
But in Russia, where Soviet-era cosmonauts get from galaxy to galaxy?”
are national icons, you come away with a Bizarro “I’m glad he’s thinking big!” replied Chris Fer-
World view of a completely different space race. guson, a veteran of three space shuttle missions
In the Russian telling, the whole thing was who’s slated to be on the first Boeing Starliner
more of a track meet, and they killed on points, trip to the space station. “We’re going to have to
even if the Americans bagged a prestige event master this whole light-speed thing,” he added
at the end. as the audience broke into laughter, “before we
The list of Soviet firsts in space is indeed get galaxy to galaxy.”
impressive, from the first satellite, dogs, man, “He’ll develop the technology to do it!” inter-
and woman in space to the first multiperson jected Victor Glover, an astronaut slated for the
crew and space walk. It’s enough to make any first SpaceX Crew Dragon flight.
American appreciate the magnitude of our “Please take us,” said Nicole Stott, a retired
national humiliation in space at the hands of astronaut and veteran of two trips to the space
our Communist adversaries at the height of station. “Take us with you!”
the Cold War and why President John F. Ken- Glover, nodding with a huge grin, had the final
nedy’s pledge to land astronauts on the moon word: “It’s on you, brother!” j
and return them to Earth by the end of the 1960s
was such a brilliant gambit to recoup prestige on
Sam Howe Verhovek really did stare long and
the global stage. hard at the moon on July 20, 1969, thinking he
Interestingly, the cosmonauts I met in Rus- might spot the Apollo 11 lunar module. As a boy,
sia seemed to share two perspectives with their Dan Winters wanted to be an astronaut; now he
revels in chronicling humankind’s explorations in
American counterparts. First, their time in space. Nadia Drake has dreamed of dancing on
space made them profoundly more interested the moon for as long as she can remember.
AT T H E
T H E S EA
96
ONE OF THE MOST REMOTE PLACES ON THE PLANET IS ALSO
AMONG THE MOST ABUNDANT WITH LIFE .
A R G E N T I N A P L A N S T O K E E P I T T H A T WAY.
STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY ENRIC SALA
END OF
T H E WO R L D
Thousands of juvenile
false southern king
crabs (Paralomis gran-
ulosa) swarm a giant
kelp forest near Cape
Horn, Chile. The spe-
cies is heavily fished in
the region, and such
large aggregations are
extremely rare.
PREVIOUS PHOTO
Jellyfish float among

the fronds of a kelp
forest off Isla de los
Estados, Argentina.
Giant kelps (Macro-
cystis pyrifera) are
the largest algae in
the ocean, growing
upward to more than
150 feet. Their forests
harbor one of the most
diverse ecosystems
on the planet.
99
Southern sea lions

(Otaria flavescens)
congregate in Fran-
cisco Coloane Marine
Park in the Chilean
fjords. The park also
provides refuge for
humpback whales
to rest and feed as
they migrate annually
between the Colom-
bian coast and the
waters of Patagonia.
Thetis Bay,
near the very tip
of Tierra del Fuego
in Argentina,
is about as
far south as
one can go in
the Americas. Shooting out of the
Few people ever do. “This is but a bad place for surf, a southern sea lion
Shipping,” Captain James Cook wrote in his jour- bull nabs a southern
rockhopper penguin
nal in 1768, cautioning future visitors to keep (Eudyptes chrysocome)
clear of the seaweed. But the bay does provide at Isla de los Estados.
some shelter from the region’s notoriously rough Southern rockhoppers
venture offshore to
seas and battering winds. On a chilly, overcast catch fish, swimming
day in February 2018, we launched a Zodiac craft together by the hun-
from our ship, the Hanse Explorer, and maneu- dreds. There is safety
in numbers—for most.
vered it through Thetis toward the shore, careful
to avoid the thick blankets of kelp and the sand-
banks emerging at low tide.
I was there leading a National Geographic
Pristine Seas expedition, in collaboration with
the Argentine government, the regional govern-
ment of Tierra del Fuego, and the Forum for the
Conservation of the Patagonian Sea. With me
was my old friend and colleague Claudio Cam-
pagna, who co-founded the forum in 2004 and
102 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C NGM MAPS

has dedicated his life to studying and protecting was especially important to me—not just for
the marine mammals of Argentina. Our goal was what we might be able to achieve but also
to gather scientific information and produce a because of a personal connection to the place.
film to lay the groundwork for a new protected Back in 1973 Paul Dayton, my friend and sci-
marine reserve in Argentina’s waters. entific mentor, conducted groundbreaking
Creating such reserves—national parks of the research here. Braving polar winds, hail, and
sea—is my life’s work. Over the past decade, our snow, and wearing only old-fashioned wet
Pristine Seas team has partnered with local allies suits—as opposed to our modern dry suits—
to help governments protect more than two mil- Paul and his buddies dived around Thetis Bay
lion square miles of ocean from fishing and other and Isla de los Estados (Staten Island) just to the
threats. Our expeditions have taken us diving all east. They measured and counted giant kelps
over the world, from coral reef islands in the vast and the invertebrates living under the kelp for-
Pacific to the frozen archipelagoes of the Arctic. est canopies fringing the shores. Nobody had
The expedition to the tip of Tierra del Fuego studied these underwater habitats, and part
of our mission was to redo Paul’s surveys. I’ve
This article was supported by Pristine Seas donors and seen firsthand the dramatic changes in other
the Wyss Campaign for Nature, which is working with
the National Geographic Society and others across the parts of our oceans caused by overfishing and
globe to help protect 30 percent of our planet by 2030. climate change, the most conspicuous being
T H E S E A AT T H E E N D O F T H E W O R L D 103
I’ve seen
the dramatic
changes in our
oceans caused
by climate
change: the
death of coral
reefs and the
shrinking of
Arctic sea ice.
What would
we find here
beneath the
surface?
A large southern red

octopus (Enteroctopus
megalocyathus) rests
on a bed of sea urchins
at Isla de los Estados.
Sea urchins are vora-
cious kelp feeders,
capable of denuding
entire forests—but here
the forests still thrive.
Octopuses eat fish and
crabs, dead and alive.
Giant kelps
continue to
grow once
they reach
the surface,
creating a
canopy through
which sunlight
filters as if
through the
stained glass
of a cathedral.
Krill swarm inside a giant

kelp forest at Islas Diego
Ramírez, 60 nautical
miles southwest of Cape
Horn. Krill form the base
of an enormous food
web, supporting fish,
penguins, sea lions, fur
seals, whales, and—atop
the web—orcas, among
the ocean’s most formi-
dable predators.
the bleaching and death of coral reefs and the A petrel flies over a than 10 percent of the
shrinking of Arctic sea ice during summer. What colony of southern world’s population of
rockhopper penguins at this vulnerable penguin
were we going to find here beneath the surface,
Isla de los Estados. More species lives here.
45 years after Paul’s visit?
on the beach and imme-

C L AU D I O A N D I S T E P P E D corals; and in a third, by baby sea cucumbers
diately realized we were walking on a mass grave. with finely branched plumes for capturing food
Old sea lion bones crunched underfoot with particles in the rich seawater.
every step—the legacy of hunters in the first half To our astonishment, the kelps in each bay still
of the 20th century. Some skulls had holes made harbored the same species. The oceanographic
by metal picks. There were jaws and teeth from conditions appeared to have remained similar
huge old males and little juveniles. Sea lions and here for the past half century: Climate change
fur seals had been taken indiscriminately, mainly had made no permanent mark yet. This seemed
for pelts and for blubber to boil for oil. a wonderful gift, and I felt a burst of joy.
By Paul Dayton’s time, the Argentine govern- We were amazed as well by the abundance of
ment had protected these species by law, but they life. Every square inch of the bottom was occu-
have yet to recover. According to researchers, pied by a living organism: white and yellow
local sea lion numbers are a fifth of what they sponges, pink encrusting algae, lollipop-like
were more than 70 years ago, possibly because sea squirts. Giant kelps bent to the seafloor from
of the dramatic decline of reproductive females the weight of the mussels growing on them. Blue
and the vast footprint of industrial fishing. starfish gorged on the mussels, along with snails
“In the past, people killed them directly,” and hermit crabs. A year before, on the Chilean
Claudio said. “Now we’re depriving them of side of this ocean ecosystem not far from Cape
their food too.” Three days before our visit to Horn, we’d stumbled upon a massive aggregation
Thetis Bay we’d seen a 360-foot-long super- of another crab species, called false southern king
trawler at the port of Ushuaia. Its nets were crabs. Two layers of them covered the bottom
big enough to hold a dozen Boeing 747s. Such while many more climbed the giant kelps and
bottom trawlers and long-liners operate at the parachuted down on their fellow crustaceans—
edge of the continental shelf of Tierra del Fuego, and on our heads. It was as if we were part of a
where the deep basin begins. Japanese science fiction film. Crabzilla!
Nearer to shore, the weather is so brutal most
of the year that few go through the effort to dive from the diving
O N E D AY W E T O O K A B R E A K
at Thetis Bay and Isla de los Estados, but hav- and ventured to the basin beyond the edge of
ing arrived in relative calm, we were able to dive the continental shelf. The Yaganes Basin is the
around the island for two weeks. heart of a massive, connected ocean ecosystem
The cold, nutrient-rich waters feed giant kelp that ranges across the southern tip of Chile and
forests that harbor one of the most magnificent Argentina to Antarctica, in a convergence of
marine ecosystems on the planet. Pillars reach Pacific, Atlantic, and Antarctic waters. Our engi-
from as deep as 150 feet to the surface, sometimes neer, Brad Henning, had brought along several
adding a foot and a half in a day. Giant kelps con- National Geographic Dropcams, glass (borosil-
tinue to grow once they reach the surface, creat- icate) spheres enclosing cinema-grade cameras
ing a canopy through which sunlight filters as if and lights. They have a weight system that car-
through the stained glass of a cathedral. ries the camera to the bottom, then returns it to
Paul had graciously scanned and copied his the surface hours later—perhaps with a trove of
handwritten notebooks for us; the pages were never seen before footage of the seafloor.
filled with detailed natural history observations The Dropcams did not disappoint. When Brad
from 1973. We carried them like treasure. Giant showed us a selection of video clips the cam-
kelp forests all look the same from the surface, eras had captured, our jaws dropped. Toothfish,
but underwater it’s a different story. hake, and other deep-sea fishes flocked to the
Paul had found that every little bay had its bait Brad had attached to the Dropcam. At one
peculiarities, sort of an ecological personality. point a fat red squid approached the camera,
In one bay the kelps were covered only by one then vanished in an explosion of ink. Many of
or two species of clams; in another, by little soft these species are overexploited in the basin. To
see them still there means their populations can an affirmation for conservation as I’ve ever wit-
rebound, if humans let them. nessed in any country. The Senate gave it the
After the expedition we changed from wet suit final blessing on December 12. Chile had already
to business suit to lobby Argentine government designated its own fully protected marine park
officials for ocean protection along with our south of Cape Horn a year earlier. Forty years
partners at the Forum for Conservation of the ago Chile and Argentina had come to the brink
Patagonian Sea and Tompkins Conservation. of war over disputed territorial rights south of
Alex Muñoz, Pristine Seas director for Latin Tierra del Fuego. Now the presidents of the two
America, presented the results of our expedition countries would like to declare the area a marine
to the government, in support of a plan to create peace park—possibly the largest contiguous
the Yaganes marine park. We also premiered transboundary protected oceanic area.
our documentary film from the expedition in “Today is a day of joy for all Argentines,” Clau-
Buenos Aires, bringing the marine wonders of dio told me on the phone, after the park bill was
Yaganes and Tierra del Fuego to Argentine lead- signed into law. But the joy isn’t only for Argen-
ers and citizens. tines. Having had the privilege of exploring and
In December the Argentine Parliament con- documenting these waters, I feel that the ocean
vened an extraordinary session to consider the has won a little bit back against our relentless
proposal. We were all nervous. We knew that quest to empty it of life. Thanks to the leadership
the National Park Administration and some key of two governments, the integrity of the great
leaders in government supported protection of ecosystem of the sea at the end of the world will
the area. But under Argentine law, the bill to be maintained for years to come. j
authorize the park had to be approved by the
House of Representatives and the Senate. National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence
After some tense negotiations, the House Enric Sala is the founding director of Pristine Seas,
which—with government leaders, NGOs, and local
voted on December 5. I was astonished. The bill communities—has helped protect more than two
passed on a vote of 196 to zero—as resounding million square miles where ocean life can thrive.
IN THE MIDDLE
OF ONE OF THE
WO R L D ’S R O U G H E S T
NEIGHBORHOODS,
NIGER CLINGS
T O S TA B I L I T Y.
B U T F O R H O W L O N G?
B Y R O B E RT D R A P E R
PHOTO GRAPHS BY
PA S C A L M A I T R E
A Nation on the Edge
111
Young men from Niger

and elsewhere wait
in a migrant “ghetto”
in Agadez, Niger, for
a caravan to Libya.
With low life expectancy,
limited educational
opportunities, and
a high poverty rate,
Niger ranks at the bot-
tom of the UN’s Human
Development Index.
PREVIOUS PHOTO
A convoy of pickups
packed with Nigeriens
and other Africans
begins a three-day trek
from Agadez through
the Sahara to Libya.
Many migrants intend
to work there; others
hope to reach Europe.
NIGER ON THE EDGE 113

A truckload of clothes,
furniture, appliances,
and various other
household items arrives
at customs in Agadez.
Nigeriens working in
Libya send earnings
home as goods, not
cash, because the Lib-
yan dinar is unstable.

JUST BEFORE DUSK,
THE FIRST PICKUP
T R U C K S R O L L PA S T
THE CHECKPOINT
A N D A R R AY T H E M S E LV E S
A C R O S S T H E D E S E RT
O N T H E O U T S K I RT S
OF AGADEZ , NIGER.
Passengers pile in, as many as 25 per vehicle,

each carrying no more than a knapsack. They
wear sunglasses and scarves to fend off the sand,
along with heavy coats for the biting-cold nights
on the three-day journey to Libya.
Their youth is palpable. Squeezed together
among strangers, they fidget and stare listlessly A teenager is dusted
at the empty landscape awaiting them. Vendors with sand from toiling
with rusty pushcarts hawk thirdhand coats, in a mine. He is one
of many Nigeriens who
sugarcane, plastic bags of water, cigarettes, and joined the rush for
wooden poles to use as braces against the pos- gold in the north, the
sibility of falling out and becoming stranded in last hope for jobless
men after tourism
the lawless, desolate Sahara as the unpitying plunged, uranium min-
motorcade recedes. ing declined, and a
Trucks keep arriving. More than a hundred law made transporting
migrants a crime.
will assemble by the time the procession begins.
Two military vehicles lumber forth—one to
lead, the other to guard the rear. As night falls,
a swarm of motorcycles materializes and surges
past the city’s checkpoint, ferrying a frantic,
last-minute wave of aspiring travelers who
wish to negotiate their way into the overstuffed
pickups. Amid the swirling sand and the pell-
mell assimilation of the stragglers, one motor-
cycle skids to a halt. Even seated, the rider is a
large, imposing figure. With an undomesticated the business in 2001 and continuing even after
beard and a toothpick wedged between his lips, Niger’s government made it illegal in 2015.
he considers the melee with an incongruously The flow of travelers has not stopped, and it
beatific smile. will not stop. West Africa’s intensifying insta-
Then he cackles: “Rice and beans!” bility guarantees this. The Boss’s job is to man-
The Boss—which is what everyone in Agadez age the flow. As a passeur, he sits at the top of a
calls the man—is not describing food. He refers, shadowy network, possibly the biggest in Aga-
instead, to the composition of the convoy. You dez, consisting of at least a hundred drivers and
have rice: the many hundreds of Nigerien passen- about as many coxeurs, subordinates who han-
gers who have joined this weekly caravan to Libya dle the arrangements. Before the trucks arrive
to find work. Then you have others, the beans— at the checkpoint, they obtain their authoriza-
no more than maybe seven per pickup—who are tion papers at the Agadez bus station from a
from elsewhere, and who are headed elsewhere, city official, who happens to be the Boss. Pay-
for reasons of their own. It is the Boss’s recipe. ments are made. Papers signed. Eyes averted.
He is, you could say, an exporter of beans. Count- The journey begins.
less thousands of them, since he first entered “They know me everywhere,” he declares.

PRECARIOUS
CROSSROADS
The arid expanses of Niger have been a nexus
of trade and transit for centuries. Impoverished
but relatively stable, the country is surrounded Taoudenni
by conflict zones where Islamist terrorist groups El Djouf
have taken root. Western, UN, and regional mili-
tary forces all increasingly see Niger as a crucial TERROR IN THE SAHEL
base for combating extremism in the region. Thousands of UN and French
troops are deployed in Mali to Bordj Badji
maintain regional stability. Yet Mokhtar
groups linked to the Islamic State
and al Qaeda regularly attack
both military and civilian targets.
Tessalit
Northbound migrant routes
Major Other
Number of terrorist attacks, 2001–2018 S A
Araouane Aguelhok
51 or more Boko Haram
10-50 Groups linked to Islamic State or al Qaeda
6-9
2-5 Other Islamist groups
1 M A L I
Mining areas in Niger
Gold Uranium
Timbuktu
Foreign military presence Base, outpost,
or other installation January 2018:
Bèr Niger Bourem
14 Malian
soldiers killed Goundam Gao
United France Germany Italy United
States Nations
0 mi 100 Ansongo
0 km 100
Douentza
Ayorou
DA N G E R O U S M I G R AT I O N Gorom-Gorom
Nearly nine of 10 migrants in northern Africa Ni ge r Mopti
are on the move to seek better economic
S
opportunities. They follow well-worn routes Ouahigouya December 2016:
San 12 Burkinabe
through lands where the governments are
soldiers killed
weak and terrorist groups are thriving.
B U R K I N A
Ouagadougou
Koupéla
E U R O P E
ASIA F A S O
TUNISIA August 2017:
MOROCCO 21 killed in
Tripoli Bobo- restaurant attack
Dioulasso
ALGERIA
Cairo
AREA LIBYA
ENLARGED EGYPT Sansanné-
Mango
T O G O
MAURITANIA
MALI
ERITREA C Ô TE Tamale
AGADEZ
Khartoum
D ’IVOIRE
Bamako NIGER
Niamey CHAD
(IVORY COAST)
SUDAN
Addis Blitta
NIGERIA Ababa
IA
ETHIOPIA
AL
CEN. SOUTH
CAMEROON G H A N A
M
AF. REP. SUDAN

SO
Islamist terrorist Mogadishu

UGANDA KENYA Lake Volta
activity
A F R I C A
DEM. REP.
Less More OF THE CONGO
Kumasi
Lomé
L AW L E S S L I BYA
Arak Many people crossing this
Ghat shattered state’s porous bor-
ders are looking for seasonal
Djanet
or permanent work, or passing
through on their way to Europe.
I-n-Amguel
L I B Y A
A L G E R I Ag g M t s.
a r
a
A h Tamanrasset
Madama
Tchibarakaten
Djado
T
Séguédine
é
H A Aïr R A
n Dirkou
Arlit
Kidal
Massif é
Ibil
N I G E R r
Fasso
Arrey é
Amzeguer
Goofat AGADEZ
S M U G G L I N G S TO P OV E R
Nigerien An ancient travel hub on the edge
Air Base of the Sahara, the bustling trading
Ménaka 201
April 2018: city of Agadez hosts thousands of
30 civilians killed migrants each year on one of the
main routes across the desert.
Tanout
October 2017:
Tahoua CHAD
4 U.S. soldiers and
5 Nigeriens killed Nguigmi
Mao
Niamey Zinder Gouré
Nigerien Air Base 101 Birnin
Konni Diffa Lake
Sokoto Chad
Dosso Nguru
May 2014:
315 civilians killed
Gamboru
N Birnin Kebbi
Gusau N’Djamena
Maiduguri
Cha
er
ig
Kano Potiskum
B O KO H A R A M
ri
Since 2011, the insurgent group

I N
Kandi based in northern Nigeria has

sought to recast that country
B E N
Maroua
as a state based on sharia, or
Islamic law. The group is linked Kaduna Bongor
Gombe April 2014:
to as many as 37,530 deaths. 276 schoolgirls
Jos abducted and
held hostage
Parakou N I G E R I A Yola
Garoua
Bida Abuja
Ilorin Niger
nu
e CAMEROON
Iseyin Be
Osogbo
Ikare
Makurdi
Ibadan Ngaoundéré
u ovo
no rto-N MATTHEW W. CHWASTYK, NGM STAFF; SCOTT ELDER. SOURCES: NATIONAL CONSORTIUM FOR THE STUDY OF
to
o TERRORISM AND RESPONSES TO TERRORISM (START), GLOBAL TERRORISM DATABASE (1970-2017, PRELIMINARY DATA:
Lagos
Co
P
JAN.-OCT. 2018); RICCARDO PRAVETTONI, RHIPTO; INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MIGRATION; EMMANUEL
GRÉGOIRE AND LAURENT GAGNOL, “RUÉES VERS L’OR AU SAHARA,” ECHOGÉO, 2017; U.S. AFRICA COMMAND;
ÉTAT-MAJOR DES ARMÉES, FRANCE; UNITED NATIONS; OPENSTREETMAP CONTRIBUTORS; EOX IT SERVICES GMBH
Agadez has long been a crossroads of trade, connecting the Sahel to North Africa and West Africa to the
Middle East. The city’s bus station (top) is the hub for migrants, while the livestock market (bottom left)
caters to a mainstay of the area’s economy. The historic city center (bottom middle) is built of mud brick
and dates to the 15th and 16th centuries. Two Tuareg women socialize in a hookah bar (bottom right).

“Even on the internet, you find pictures of the Ezekiel. Tala. Cherif Kante. May God help us all.
Boss with immigrants.” He facilitates their Two brothers from a Burkina Faso village, skinny
trans-Saharan passage from Agadez to the but with impeccable teeth, impeccably inno-
central Libyan city of Sabha. Then he enlists a cent: had not gone to school, did not know their
counterpart to guide them from Sabha to Tripoli, ages, had a brother waiting in Algeria, had only
and another to ferry them across the Mediterra- a change or two of clothes, hoping somehow to
nean to the West. Where the travelers ultimately get to a place called Europe.
wind up—in Italy, in the United States, in a That same morning, the day before the convoy
deportation cell, or left to die in the desert or to was to head out, the Boss escorted me behind a
drown in the sea—is outside the Boss’s purview. wall and into a courtyard littered with rusted
Still, something deeper than a trickster’s boast car parts, where a couple dozen young African
is evident when he proudly recalls a client who men—most but not all from Niger—were sleep-
made her way from Cameroon to Agadez to ing or smoking in the shade. An 18-year-old from
Germany in less than two weeks. A criminal to Agadez named Mohammed was tinkering with
some, the Boss, who owing to the shadiness of the engine of his pickup. He had returned from
his enterprise does not divulge his name, would Libya with the convoy just two hours earlier and
prefer to think of himself as a highly entrepre- was visibly groggy. Tomorrow he would be north-
neurial public servant. bound again. Mohammed said that he had been
traveling this circuit every week since he was 15.
T H E B O S S I S , A B OV E A L L , a stabilizer in a region Bullet holes scarred the passenger seat and left-
with few such actors. To the uninitiated, the tab- rear fender of his battered truck. He had been
leau at the checkpoint looks out of control. But held up in the desert four times in the past three
it is not. A system is at work—one that is under- years. Mohammed assured me that such expe-
stood by all and benefits many. Being illegal, it riences had scared the hell out of him. He had
is not the best system. But it is a creative solu- been an auto mechanic and still did repair work,
tion to an unavoidable fact, which is that Niger he said, but added, “The money is better here.”
is surrounded by chaos. Though it is a country The teenage truck driver, his fidgety pas-
of myriad woes—deep poverty, rising popula- sengers, even the Boss: In the end, their sto-
tion, a shortage of arable land made worse by ries converge. Unrest is the abiding narrative
desertification, and a shaky political system—it of West Africa. It is a region thrashed by eco-
is not the incubator of violence that its neigh- nomic despair, spiking and drastically shifting
bors are. It is a country people flee through, not population, environmental degradation, polit-
flee from. Niger’s fate depends on whether it ical instability, and, increasingly, violence. It is
holds off the chaos and maintains a semblance spinning out of control. And Niger, haloed as it
of order, or succumbs to it altogether. is by five of the continent’s greatest incubators
The Boss’s role in Niger’s drama of brinkman- of Islamist extremist groups—Algeria and Libya
ship did not become apparent to me until one to the north, Mali to the west, Chad to the east,
Sunday morning, when he and I spent several and Nigeria to the south—is poorer than all of
hours driving together through the migrant them and yet the most pacific, for now. As the
“ghettos” of Agadez. It is an ancient, low-slung U.S. ambassador to the country, Eric Whitaker,
city with a sultan’s palace and a 500-year-old gently puts it, “Niger is a good country in a
mosque at its historic center, the outlying neigh- rough neighborhood.”
borhoods composed largely of mud and straw, Preserving its safe distance from peril is a
with more than 130,000 inhabitants, not count- vexing proposition. But given the country’s
ing the Boss’s many clients just passing through. status as “a critical actor in regional efforts to
We found some of the latter behind mud-brick counter terrorism and promote stability” (as the
walls, killing time quietly in back rooms, waiting State Department puts it), a tacit understand-
for the Monday convoy. Four boys, 15 to 18, from ing among some Western powers seems to have
Burkina Faso, Mali, and Ivory Coast, eyes glassily coalesced: Lose Niger—the one country in its
attuned to a small TV. A wiry 50-year-old man “rough neighborhood” that has not become a
from Cameroon hoping to rejoin his wife in Ger- cauldron of violence and extremist activity—
many but for now pacing in an unlit room with and all bets are off. It is why an air base was
walls covered in graffiti from others in transit: being built by the U.S. Air Force on the outskirts
of Agadez when I was there and why U.S. special adults in their dazzling wardrobes. The agrarian
operations forces have participated in counter- village’s population, about 2,300, has roughly
terrorism missions in Niger—one of which in doubled in less than 20 years. With more babies
October 2017 led to the deaths of four U.S. sol- comes the need for more schools, more social
diers, four Nigerien soldiers, and a Nigerien services, and more grazing land, along with the
interpreter in an ambush by Islamist militants. potential for more conflict. Writ small, Goofat
It is why foreign aid makes up 40 percent of is the cautionary parable of Niger—a country
Niger’s budget. It is also why the Boss, while dis- nearly twice the size of Texas, with about three
persing West Africans across the globe, is in his and a half times its fertility rate but a mere
own paradoxical way helping to hold a region 0.5 percent of its gross domestic product.
together that could very easily come apart. Even by a troubled continent’s standards,
One morning the Boss paid a visit to my hotel Niger’s predicament is grave, bracketed by two
THOUGH NIGER IS A COUNTRY OF MYRIAD WOES—
P O V E R T Y, D E S E R T I F I C A T I O N , A S H A K Y P O L I T I C A L S Y S T E M —
It is NOT AN INCuBATOR OF VIOLENCE.

IT IS A COUNTRY PEOPLE FLEE THROUGH, NOT FLEE FROM.
in Agadez. He slouched in a chair on the patio, sobering statistics: a GDP per capita of about a
wearing sunglasses and a turban, a toothpick in thousand dollars, one of the world’s lowest, and
his mouth, brooding as he listened to a French a fertility rate of seven births per woman, which
radio program on his smartphone. Eventually is the highest. But demography does not fully
he muttered, “The European community has explain the precarious state of Niger. As a land-
blocked everything. Tourism, migration, the locked desert country, it has faced punishing
mines. What else is there to do but sleep? Some- droughts, and climate change is expected to make
one bites you and then tells you not to cry.” them harsher. Poverty and environmental fragil-
ity have in turn exacerbated political instability.
an hour’s drive from
T H E V I L L AG E R S O F G O O FAT, Since gaining independence from France in
Agadez, gathered one day last December. Mostly 1960, Niger has endured four military coups,
Tuaregs, a semi-settled, largely Muslim group, the latest in 2010. In the past 30 years, it has also
they were electing a chief for the first time. The experienced two bloody Tuareg rebellions. The
event was one of scrupulous fanfare. A cow was most recent, which ended a decade ago, left an
slaughtered, and a band played folk songs. The abiding scar across the largest of Niger’s eight
women wore gold jewelry with their faces tinted regions, Agadez. Until then, the city of Aga-
yellow as they sat cross-legged on rugs. The men dez had been a tourist gateway to the Sahara,
wore bright turbans and their best robes. One by receiving up to 20,000 visitors annually, many
one, a representative from each of the village’s via direct flights from Paris. The three years of
270 or so families—often a woman—was called violent skirmishes between the rebels and Niger’s
by last name to fill out a ballot for or against the army had the effect of vaporizing the predom-
sole candidate and drop it into a plastic bin. inant industry. The travel business began to
After nearly two hours of voting and ballot regard Agadez as a zone rouge.
counting, the landslide winner, a slender, middle- Into the void stepped the Boss and others in
aged man from the Kourouza family, dutifully the migrant-moving trade. Because of the city’s
stepped forward, took his place in a chair, and geographic position, Agadez—derived from the
affected a regal scowl while village elders sol- Tuareg word egdez, “to visit”—had for centuries
emnly wrapped his head in a purple turban. been a transit point for salt caravans and other
Beneath the pageantry, however, lurked a dis- camel-borne nomadic traders. As a hub for Afri-
quieting reality: The families elected Mohamed can migrants, Agadez was well situated and, for
Kourouza chief because they had decided Goo- that matter, well equipped with former tourist
fat had grown too big to remain ungoverned. guides and drivers.
Infants and small children far outnumbered the “As many as 300,000 migrants came through

Hundreds of shafts line

a gold mine in north-
ern Niger on the border
with Algeria. Teams turn
cranks to lower miners
more than 300 feet to
gold-bearing layers.
The miners bring up
rock to be crushed,
releasing the treasure.

Buyers choose animals

at the livestock mar-
ket and send them to
this slaughterhouse in
Agadez, where camels,
goats, sheep, and other
animals are killed and
then sent to butchers
who sell the meat.

here every year,” recalled the city’s mayor, Rhissa obvious risks, attested to by the October 2017
Feltou. “Drivers, hotels, markets, banks, tele- ambush. (No incidents of U.S. troops drawing
phone companies—the whole city benefited.” fire have been reported in the past year.) But the
The migrant flow became a gusher in 2011, American military presence is an act of national
after the fall of Libya’s ruler, Muammar Qad- security self-interest, not foreign benevolence.
dafi, ruptured Niger’s border with Libya. But As the State Department starkly describes it,
the southbound traffic now included guns “U.S. foreign assistance to Niger plays a critical
diverted from Libyan government stockpiles. role in preserving stability in a country vulner-
The barely checked acceleration of migrants able to political volatility, terrorism and the
further strained social resources in European spread of violent extremism, food insecurity,
countries while creating humanitarian trage- and regional instability.”
dies in the desert and at sea. The porousness of Agadez itself has not been named in recent
African borders raised concerns about the spread intelligence threat assessments, according to a
of terrorism—all the more so since the U.S.-led U.S. defense official. But the presence of a mili-
efforts in Afghanistan against al Qaeda and in tary base and the city’s distance from the border-
Iraq against ISIS had compelled those groups to lands can protect Agadez for only so long. The
seek a more hospitable refuge. conversations behind mud-brick walls reflect
After the European Union offered financial a gathering discontent. Young men enumerat-
inducements, Niger’s government in 2015 crim- ing their all but exhausted options. They had
inalized transporting migrants. In Agadez the attended school, looked for work, played by the
police confiscated scores of pickup trucks. Cox- rules. With few jobs to be had, some found their
eurs and drivers were arrested, along with the place in the Boss’s racket. After seeing friends
Boss, who spent three weeks in jail. The city’s get arrested and their trucks impounded, they
number one source of revenue had been offi- withdrew. And now they are waiting for what-
cially banned, in effect consigning Agadez’s ever might come next.
post-tourism economy to the black market. Meanwhile they were hearing about other
Even with the crackdown on human smug- young men making appeals: Looking for a job?
gling, Agadez’s location ensures it will remain We will pay. Need money for a wedding? We will
a transit point for foreign travelers. Today it has pay. The YouTube videos and WhatsApp texts
a new type of guest. Known as Air Base 201, it is from the Nigerian jihadist group Boko Haram
a military installation owned by the Nigerien were making the rounds.
government but leased by the U.S. and inhabited One evening at a fada—an ad hoc social gath-
by some 550 of the latter’s Air Force personnel. ering of young Nigerien men over hot tea and
Its existence is hardly a secret, but its American card games—an enterprising individual who had
occupants are a discreet presence—showing up once made a decent living importing pickups but
in Agadez to rebuild a school, or in a nearby vil- now had few takers bowed out of the crazy eights
lage to construct a water well, but largely staying game and considered his lot morosely.
on base. When I visited in December, American “Things cannot keep going at this rate,” he
military engineers were busily constructing a said quietly. “It will become a jungle.”
mile-long runway that can withstand desert
conditions. C-17 and C-130 aircraft will use the of the Sahara, a West
AT T H E S O U T H E R N E D G E
runway, along with weaponized MQ-9 drones, African gold rush is under way. Thousands of
which will not only monitor the activities of men attack a rubble-strewn scrubland. Some
extremist groups but also target them. swing pickaxes and use shovels. A few operate
These operations will extend well beyond a power drill. Others have no tools at all—only
the Agadez region and into the “rough neigh- rocks to loosen the dirt by hand.
borhood” that has bred extremist groups. “The Occasionally the ground shakes, accompanied
enemy exploits these borders—which are very by a muffled concussive boom: dynamite. It’s a
porous—all the time,” said Samantha Reho, more efficient way of digging, if rather dangerous
spokeswoman for the U.S. Africa Command, and for that matter illegal—though many if not
responsible for overseeing the U.S. military’s most of these men already are going about their
role in Niger. work without an official government permit.
The counterterrorism mission comes with All around them stretches what one might call
a tent city, except that the tents have been tat- a mine collapsed. “Both jobs are risky,” he says.
tered by the winds into ribbons that flap above “But,” he muses, “if someone calls me from the
miners who lie snoring on the ground. city, saying, ‘I’ve got 50 migrants, and can you
The squatter village is called Amzeguer, and it help move them?’ of course I’ll do it.” Jamal’s
did not exist until about five years ago. voice is matter-of-fact. “If I can’t find gold, I’ll go
In a drearily familiar African paradox, Niger back,” he says. “If not on a Hilux truck, then on
is mineral rich, the world’s fifth largest pro- a camel caravan, the way they used to.”
ducer of uranium, even as it ranks lowest on the
United Nations’ Human Development Index. you did not find thieves
“ U N T I L V E RY R E C E N T LY,
(Its three largest mines are joint ventures with in Agadez,” said Sheikh Salahadine Madani, the
French multinationals. The plummeting price of imam of Agadez’s strict Islamic school, Daroul
uranium has led to layoffs of Nigerien workers.) Kouran. “They would work in tourism or with
A YOUNG MAN WHO HAD ONCE
IMP ORTED PICKUP S NOW HAD FEW TAKERS.
‘THINGS CANNOT KEEP GOING AT THIS RATE.

I T W I L L B E C O M E A J U N G L E .’
In 2017 the government closed its largest migrants or go to the mines to find gold. Now,
gold-mining area, on the Djado Plateau to the when I visit the prison, I see people I would
north—ostensibly because of terrorist activity, never expect to see there. They are honest peo-
though more likely because of foreign min- ple who became desperate.”
ers coming in from Chad, Sudan, and Libya. The imam, visiting my hotel, sipped a Coca-
Many of the Nigerien miners were now here, Cola under the shade of a patio umbrella. His
along with other men from Agadez whose voice was heavy with lament. Nonetheless, he
labors constituted a desperate stab at a quasi- bristled when I mentioned to him that the ortho-
legitimate livelihood. dox Islamic movement he’s part of, known as
“Do I have hope?” says a 46-year-old man Izala, has historical ties to Boko Haram’s founder.
named Jamal, who then pulls his scarf away to “The Quran doesn’t say that you should kill
reveal his sand-caked face. “Look at my beard. innocents in the name of Islam,” he pointed
It’s turning white from hoping.” out. Madani conceded, however, that the path
Jamal stands on a hill pocked with deep from economic desperation to violent extrem-
holes. “We dug down to 53 meters deep, but ism was well worn. “Yes, I’ve seen this,” he said.
then we hit water,” he says. “We need to flush it “You hear kids sometimes talking about how
out. There’s a pump all of us share, but it broke they have no opportunities. You hear them in
down.” He points several yards away, to a lanky the streets talking about how maybe this is the
miner in a blue jumpsuit almost entirely coated only option left.”
with a film of dust. The man, along with his 11 Still, this option—calamitously antisocial,
sons (ages 12 to 30), had managed to dig a hole blasphemous, ultimately self-nullifying—seems
to 60 meters and had encountered traces of the anathema to West Africans, who go to astound-
precious mineral. “The gold’s right there waiting lengths to avoid it. Whatever one may think
ing,” Jamal maintains. “We just need to find of the Boss and his clients, their sheer tenacity
some money to fix our pump.” is astounding.
Amzeguer has been Jamal’s workplace for One morning at a shelter in Agadez that
nearly three years. Before that he was a desert helps migrants return to their homelands, I met
guide for migrants based in Agadez, with six Mohamed, a 19-year-old from Ivory Coast who
drivers under his supervision. After the migra- wore a necklace with a razor blade dangling from
tion ban took effect, the police seized two of it. Mohamed had been there for five days.
his pickups. Now he is a penniless artisanal He said, without going into specifics, that
miner. Several of his new colleagues died in there had been family problems back in his
the shafts after a tool was dropped on them or village—and that, regardless, his dream had

In Agadez, an Izala
school educates about
1,300 students. Izala
is a back-to-basics
Islamic reformist move-
ment that adheres to
conservative practices,
such as women cover-
ing their faces, but also
prizes education.

A Tuareg woman in
Goofat casts her fami-
ly’s vote in the election
of a village chief. Within
the past 20 years, the
village population has
doubled to 2,300, par-
alleling a nationwide
demographic trend.

always been to live in America. And so, in arrived in Agadez, four months from the begin-
August 2018, Mohamed paid for a six-day drive ning of his fruitless journey.
in the back of a pickup to Gao, in Mali. Along When the mechanic had finished telling me
the way, he and the 19 other passengers were his story, he did not seem particularly discour-
robbed and several of their water bottles slashed aged by it. Before I could offer any sympathy,
by bandits. They walked the final 70 miles in the he blurted out, “I don’t want to go home. I’ve
desert to Algeria. decided on my goal.”
Mohamed spent a month working as an auto Mohamed had a new plan. He would return
mechanic in the border town of Bordj Badji to Ivory Coast, make money, get a passport, and
Mokhtar. He then traveled by foot and hitched buy a direct flight to Morocco, bypassing the des-
rides into Morocco, hoping to find passage by ert altogether. And then to the sea.
water to Spain and from there to the U.S. “If God gives me the chance,” he said, “and
Instead Moroccan immigration authorities I arrive in Europe alive and healthy, I think I
jailed him for five days. He then escaped back to can make it”—by which he meant make it to
Algeria, where he was briefly jailed again before America, a land of millions of vehicles in need
being relieved of the last of his money. Finding of a clever mechanic. j
no further use for him, Algerian authorities
deposited Mohamed onto the back of a dump Robert Draper has reported from a dozen African
countries as a contributing writer. Pascal Maitre,
truck, which drove him into Niger and left him a frequent contributor to National Geographic,
in the desert. After several days on foot, he has visited Niger 15 times on assignment.
Why did a U.S. mission

in Niger turn deadly?
A N E W D O C U M E N TA R Y Q U E S T I O N S T H E
P E N TA G O N ’ S A N S W E R , W H I C H P L A C E D
B L A M E O N A S P E C I A L O P E R AT I O N S T E A M .
BY THE ABC NEWS INVESTIGATIVE UNIT
Debra Gannon’s son, Sgt. 1st Class Jeremiah Johnson, was

one of four U.S. special operations soldiers killed in Niger on
October 4, 2017, when Islamist fighters ambushed their team.
The clash near Tongo Tongo was the deadliest for U.S. forces
in Africa since the “Black Hawk Down” battle in Mogadishu,
Somalia, 24 years earlier. The foggy circumstances of the
gunfight—the subject of much debate—have confused the
families of the fallen, and the public.
Gannon believes her son, along with Staff Sgt. Bryan Black,
Staff Sgt. Dustin Wright, and Sgt. LaDavid Johnson, fought
heroically. But in an investigation into what went wrong, the
military laid much of the blame on the team rather than its
senior commanders. The Marine Corps general overseeing
U.S. military operations in Africa praised special operations
units for “serving well,” but pointed out, “This particular team
is not indicative of what they do.”
The military’s conclusions stung the families of the deceased
soldiers and contradicted what they were hearing from other
team members and news reports. “That really infuriated me,”
Gannon says. “They’re trying to make them look bad.”
Gannon’s son was part of a 10-man team training, advising, and
working with 34 Nigerien soldiers. As they returned to base after
searching a campsite recently used by an Islamic State affiliate
A U.S. Air Force crew leader, they were attacked by more than a hundred extremists.
paves a runway at a In a yearlong investigation, ABC News learned from multiple
new Nigerien air base
sources that the Pentagon, in briefings for the grieving fami-
near Agadez that will
deploy weaponized lies, withheld information about the crucial decisions that put
drones. Hundreds of their sons in harm’s way. Most significantly, sources inside and
U.S. airmen stationed at outside the armed forces told ABC that the team’s captain had
the outpost will assist strenuously objected to the mission, calling it too dangerous for
in the regional fight his lightly armed unit, which was given scant intelligence and
against terrorist groups,
no armed backup. He was overruled by his commanders.
including affiliates of
ISIS and al Qaeda. “If he had been listened to,” says Hank Black, “my son and
Jeremiah, LaDavid, and Dustin would be here today.”
The Army general who led the investigation into the firefight
said it was his “solemn responsibility” to the families of the
fallen soldiers to be “accurate and transparent.” But in exclusive
interviews with ABC News, family members say they are out-
raged and anguished by the military’s initial conclusions. The
Defense Department has since ordered another review.
Myeshia Johnson, LaDavid Johnson’s widow, says her family
has been through “so much pain and so much suffering,” but
won’t be able to heal without knowing the full truth. “I feel like
they’re covering everything up,” she says. “Just say what really
happened. That’s all you have to do.”
More about this ABC News Investigative Unit documentary

can be found at abcnews.go.com. National Geographic and
ABC News plan to collaborate on future stories.

B Y P E T E R S C H WA R T Z S T E I N
P H O T O G R A P H S B Y A R KO DAT TO
A Great Forest Shrinks,

and Lives Are Washed Away
R I S I N G WAT E R S A N D I L L I C I T LO G G I N G A R E K I L L I N G T H E T R E E S
T H A T P R O T E C T T H E I N D I A - B A N G L A D E S H C O A S T.
136
137
It was when the

body of a long-dead
friend surfaced near
her front door that
Bulu Haldar knew
her house was as
good as gone.
For weeks, the embankment shielding East
Dhangmari, in the Khulna district of southwest-
ern Bangladesh, had been threatening to sink
into the Pasur River. First, a ferocious storm had
ripped into the outer layer of concrete. Then,
at the end of 2017, the river had begun eating
into the porous earthen wall itself. Locals rushed
in sandbags, but that bought only a few days’
respite. When the river finally surged into the
cemetery across from Haldar’s garden, disin-
terring skeletons and contaminating the village’s
drinking pools, it filled her one-room hut waist-
deep in muddy brown water.
“There was nothing else I could do to pro-
tect my house,” she said. “We were powerless,
like children.”
Haldar, a meticulously dressed widow
of about 50, had at least had some inkling
of what was to come. She’d watched as the
nearby Sundarbans, a vast mangrove forest
that flanks the village, had retreated, its trees
looking increasingly weedy. She’d noted how
the water appeared to draw strength from the
forest’s weakness. The only surprise, Haldar
insisted, is that the village’s earthworks held
out for so long. “The trees defended us, but we
treated them very badly,” she said. “So now we
are all suffering the consequences.”
Ghoramara Island,
India, on the western
edge of the Sundarbans
mangrove forest, has
been robbed of its
protective mangroves
by tree cutting and
sea-level rise and is
eroding steadily. Nitya
Gopal lost his home.
PREVIOUS PHOTO
Tidal surges now isolate

parts of Sagar Island,
south of Ghoramara in
the Hugli River.
THE SHRINKING SUNDARBANS 139

IN BANGLADESH and the neighboring Indian state worst-case scenario, in which sea levels rise by
of West Bengal, there are thousands of villages more than six feet this century, Bangladesh
like East Dhangmari—places that are losing their alone stands to lose some 800 square miles of
natural defenses against climate change just as it mangroves in the Sundarbans. The best-case
is intensifying. The land is paper-flat and criss- scenario is a loss of roughly 80 square miles.
crossed by rivers bulging with meltwater from Salehin and other scientists fear even that much
the Himalaya. Cyclones frequently roar in off might prove disastrous for a country so poor the
the Bay of Bengal, sometimes killing thousands. forest is besieged by human needs.
Flooding is pervasive. The land itself is disappearing. Without the
Some farmers in Bangladesh—a country the tangled roots of the mangroves to stabilize it,
size of Iowa with a population of 160 million— land erodes into the sea—and with upstream
refer to their homeland as a divine prank: The dams trapping river sediment, it’s not replen-
soil is fantastically fertile, but you’re always in ished as it once was.
danger of getting washed away. In 1998 an espe- The islands in India’s Hugli River, in the Gan-
cially monstrous flood inundated about 70 per- ges estuary on the western edge of the Sundar-
cent of the country. bans region, illustrate advanced stages of the
One thing the region’s coastal communities decay. At least three islands that a century ago
felt they could always bank on, though, is the were covered in mangroves—Lohachahara,
Sundarbans, the world’s largest contiguous man- Suparibhanga, and Bedford—have vanished.
grove forest. Spanning nearly 4,000 square miles Others are eroding fast: Sagar Island has shrunk
on both sides of the Indian-Bangladeshi border, by about 20 square miles since the mid-20th
this dense swamp of flood-tolerant trees stands century, even as its population has swollen with
as a green wall, absorbing storm surges and new arrivals from its disappearing neighbors.
blunting even the worst cyclones. For villagers, Crop-growing conditions on Sagar have deterio-
the forest is also an abundant source of honey rated so much that residents now survive largely
and its waters a source of fish. “The Sundarbans off seasonal labor elsewhere.
is our mother,” said Joydev Sardar, secretary of In some parts of the Sundarbans, the sea is
the fishermen’s association in Harinagar, Ban- advancing about 200 yards a year. “The peo-
gladesh. “She protects, feeds, and employs us.” ple around the Sundarbans will lose a lot,” said
But after years of abuse from man and nature, Tuhin Ghosh, an associate professor at Jadavpur
the mangroves seem to be nearing their limits. University in Kolkata. “This is happening now.”
Illicit logging, mostly for building materials to But even cities like Kolkata and Dhaka that lie
house the region’s booming population, has some distance from the vanishing mangroves, he
thinned out the periphery of the forest. At the added, will find themselves “extremely exposed
same time, increasing water salinity caused by to cyclones and storm surges.”
the encroaching sea is killing off many higher
value, storm-stopping tree species, such as part of the embankment
I N F E B R U A RY 2 0 1 8
the sundari that gives the forest its name. The that holds back the Chunar River west of East
salinity assault comes from both land and sea: Dhangmari, Bangladesh, collapsed for the third
Upstream dams on rivers in India have reduced time in a year. Sixteen houses were swept away
freshwater flow into the Sundarbans, while sea- in what for locals had become an almost rou-
level rise caused by climate change is flushing tine tragedy. But as the catalog of misfortunes
more salt water into the mangroves. mounted over the following months, even the
“The salinity front is just going up and up oldest, most judicious residents knew these
and up,” said Mashfiqus Salehin, a professor were no ordinary crises. Rice yields during
at Bangladesh University of Engineering and the 2018 dry-season harvest were way down—
Technology’s Institute of Water and Flood often well under a ton an acre, which pushed up
Management. “New areas will salinize, and food prices. In many fields, vegetables simply
moderately salinized areas might become wouldn’t grow in the salty soils.
unlivable. It’s becoming a big problem.” In the “Because of the water damage, it sometimes
seems like only the carpenters have work,” said
Funding for this story was provided by Internews’ farmer Bimol Sardar.
Earth Journalism Network. In the spring of 2018, a disease that has
Khulna
BA
Rampal
NGL
Kolkata
(Calcutta)
IND
East
ADE
Dhangmari
IA
SH
r
su
Canning
Pu
Diamond Harinagar
Harbour
Haldia
s
n
Ha
a
rin
b
ghat
r
li
ug
a
H
Ghoramara
d
Ku n g a
Island
n
ri
S u
a
Bidyadh
Mangrove
ng al forest
Raima
Sagar 0 mi 10
n
Island
ur a
0 km 10
ak
l
ga
Th
n
Be
of
Bay
Lost Protection
The Sundarbans spans nearly 4,000 square miles
New Delhi
of India and Bangladesh along the Bay of Bengal. I NDI A
Dhaka
The world’s largest continuous mangrove forest, AREA
it’s home to a wide variety of species. For the ENLARGED
7.5 million people who live in the region, the for- BANGLADESH
est is a natural barrier against tides and cyclones.
But as people cut the trees and rising seas bring
saline waters, the forest and the land itself are
shrinking. More than a million coastal residents
have already migrated north.
proliferated across some of southern Bangla- loudly; the man’s daughter tried to push more
desh struck this quiet corner of the country. fluids into him.
Cholera, thriving in the hotter temperatures and Finally, as if to illustrate the impossibility of
increasingly brackish waters of the Sundarbans, living in the new Sundarbans, several dozen
has come roaring back in the swamps in which families pulled up stakes in April and moved
it was supposedly born. When I visited, the local to Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. No longer
doctor was overwhelmed. able to make much of a living off the land, they
“Almost every one of my patients is here opted to join the million to 1.5 million other
because of water-related diseases that were villagers from southern coastal communities
nowhere near as much of a problem before,” who’ve already relocated to the overloaded city,
said Shivapada Mondol. “The circumstances according to Atiq Rahman, director of the Ban-
are verging on dangerous.” On a stretcher out- gladesh Center for Advanced Studies. The World
side his office, a skeletally thin old man retched Bank suggests that by 2050, more than 13 million
CLARE TRAINOR, NGM STAFF. SOURCE: NASA THE SHRINKING SUNDARBANS 141
Day laborers repair

earthen flood defenses
along the flanks of
Sagar Island. Even
though cyclones and
storm surges are
strengthening, death
tolls are decreasing as
emergency procedures
and shelters improve.

Top left: Kishari Mandal pilgrims come to bathe

grazes her cattle on in the Ganges Delta.
Ghoramara Island after a Bottom left: In Bangla-
tidal surge has receded. desh, Mohammad Gia-
Top right: On Sagar, suddin Hawladar (left)
Bijoy and Sona Bag and and Mohammad Shobuj
their children stand on Hawladar remain on the
ruins of a school that suc- crumbling banks of tiny
cumbed to tides in 2017. Chalitabunia Island.
Bottom right: A life- Many people have fled
guard patrols off Sagar, the increasingly flood-
where crowds of Hindu prone Sundarbans.
Bangladeshis—including most of those on the

margins of the Sundarbans—might migrate
because of climate-related crises. The forecast
in West Bengal is similarly alarming.
Despite the challenges, some people here
remain guardedly optimistic about the future.
The governments on both sides of the border
have gotten a grip on the worst of the man-
grove cutting, heavily punishing offenders, and
they’ve learned from past natural disasters. By
building more cyclone shelters and deploying
up to 150,000 volunteers before major storms
strike, Bangladeshi officials have drastically
cut death tolls. In even the poorest parts of
the Sundarbans, villagers have displayed an
impressive capacity for adaptation. As salin-
ity surges, they’ve abandoned rice farming in
favor of shrimping.
But in the battle to preserve the mangroves—
and in the long run, perhaps Bangladesh itself—
the difficulties are increasing. Dhaka has green-lit
the construction of a large, Indian-backed, coal-
fired power station at Rampal, on the edge of the
Sundarbans, a move that could pave the way for
other polluting industries. China is proposing
more dams in the Brahmaputra basin, potentially
jeopardizing the mangroves’ remaining freshwa-
ter supply. And the climate keeps on changing,
bringing ever more erratic rains, storms, and
temperature swings.
As the troubles mount, some locals wonder:
In the land that mangroves built, will climate
change be king?
“The Sundarbans built this country,” Bulu
Haldar said. “Perhaps the Sundarbans”—or the
loss of this forested region—“will destroy it.” j
Peter Schwartzstein is an Athens-based journalist

who focuses on food, water, and climate. Arko
Datto works on long-term projects on the Indian
subcontinent from his base in Kolkata. This is
their first article for the magazine.

YOUR SHOT
SMAHA JAHANGIR
PHOTOS FROM OUR COMMUNITY
WHO For her birthday, Jahangir visited Dubai, the United

Jahangir, an optometrist Arab Emirates city famous for its large buildings and
in Faisalabad, Pakistan bold ambitions. Late one afternoon, tourists filled
WHERE
the observation decks to view the sunset from the
The 125th floor of Dubai’s
Burj Khalifa, the tallest
124th and 125th floors of the Burj Khalifa, the world’s
building on Earth tallest structure. A young man and woman stood in
WHAT front of the glass, overtaken by golden light. Jahangir
Taken with a Nikon D610 took two shots of them in perfect silhouette. A few
camera with Tamron
15-30mm f/2.8 lens
seconds later, the young couple broke their position
and walked away.
Join National Geographic’s Your Shot community and share your photos at YourShot.ngm.com.
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E X P E R I E N C E O U R WO R L D
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