It is four decades since the first human foot left an indelible mark in the soft lunar top soil. Today we celebrate and remember with awe the fortieth anniversary of the first manned moon landing. In preparation for this, the moon was photographed by the Ranger missions - starting the first chapter of lunar remote sensing. After the first 'small step', followed by a few more, a long period of quiescence ensued.

The Clementine mission in mid 90's gave us the first mustispectral imagery of the lunar surface and the first mineral map of the moon was generated. The new millennium saw a renewed interest in lunar exploration and countries apart from the US and Russia joined the race. China, Japan and India have successfully executed their own moon mapping missions - and this leads me to believe that it is not purely to prove a point (the way US had to in the 60's) that others have jumped into the fray. It is probably for the same reason as that a flag was planted on the ocean bed at the north pole, and permanent bases established on Antarctica.

In a lighter vein - Is it right to say Lunar GIS? In the future, when we humans may explore and populate other planets and solar systems, the awareness of where we are from will not be forgotten as long as the word 'GEOgraphical' is in use.