From a very early age I had the fancy to have a journey to the moon. The fancy was inspired by stories that I have heard from my grandmother and mother. The repeated stories that I have heard from my grandmother and mother. The repeated stories strengthened my fancy so much so that it gradually became s strong desire__ a desire to have a trip to the moon. I wanted to meet the chandler Bur__ the old lady of the moon. My grandmother told in her story that the old lady in the moon goes on spinning thread at her wheel forever. Oh, how romantic it would be to talk to such an old lady. It would be wonderful to hear stories of some other older ladies in some other planets.
With this strong desire in mind, I spent days, without really realizing my dream. But one day the chance really came. I mounted a spacecraft on the 7th June 2003. World was glorified enough to launch a spacecraft to the moon on that day. We mounted the rocket from the Abahani football field. When we mounted thousands of people gathered around. They were shouting cheers. They were saluting us, and wishing us a successful journey to the Moon.
We saluted the crowd for the last time and went in. The rocket zoomed off with a tremendous noise. The buildings around seemed to shake with the sound. Then with a violent jerk it went off into the sky. Soon we were in space. We did not feel the speed. We saw the first sunset which came over the Indian Ocean. It was a beautiful display of vivid coolers__oranges, yellows, purples. The sun was too bright for the open eyes. I had t use filters to look at it. At night the sky looked like a showcase of luminous stars. The vast astronomical distances between stars, and the distances from our spacecraft made us feel that we were stationary, fixed in the empty space. But no, we were moving at a tremendous speed, and were soon on the surface of the moon. One of our three astronauts was steering the command module. A ladder was lowered from the module and I stepped on the surface of the moon. “It was a small step for a man, but a giant leap for mankind.
We found that the surface of the moon was fine and powdery. I found no difficulty in moving around. We spent about 22 hours on the moon. We collected about 40 pounds of stuff to bring home. The Bangla polo splashed down safely in the Indian Ocean. It was a bright morning of 9 June 2003.
