Luna 2 Luna 2 Luna 2 (E-1A series) or Lunik 2 was the second of the Soviet Union's Luna programme spacecraft launched to the Moon. It was the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon, and the first man-made object to land on another celestial body. On September 13, 1959, it hit the Moon's surface east of Mare Imbrium near the craters Aristides, Archimedes, and Autolycus. Launch was scheduled for September 9, but the Blok I core stage was shut down after it failed to reach full thrust at ignition. The booster was removed from the pad and replaced by
The Celestial Railroad expanding on his earlier piece for solo piano, also entitled "The Celestial Railroad". The Celestial Railroad "The Celestial Railroad" is short story written as an allegory by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. In it, Hawthorne parodies the seventeenth-century book "The Pilgrim's Progress" by John Bunyan, which portrays a Christian's spiritual "journey" through life. In this story, the pilgrim journeys by iron horse rather than by foot, the burden of sin that Bunyan portrays is pulled by the same train, and Bunyan's figure Evangelist, preaching a message of conversion, is replaced by a figure known as "Mr. Smooth-it-away." Hawthorne mostly wrote against