Howling at the moon under threat

On Wednesday, World Monuments Fund released its list of threatened cultural heritages. It includes entities across 29 countries, including Qhapaq Nan, a pre-Hispanic Andean road system passing through multiple South American countries, Antakya in Turkey, and Noto peninsula in Japan, the last two damaged by earthquakes. But it also includes an extraterrestrial site: the moon. WMF has howled at the moon because of 'mounting risks amidst accelerating lunar activities', which, according to the non-profit, were 'undertaken without adequate preservation protocols'. This concern is reminiscent of the accident suffered by the 'man on the moon' as depicted in Georges Melies classic 1902 silent movie, A Trip to the Moon, when the manned rocket plonks into one of the moon's eye.

Considering the moon is the next Davos - or Phuket, if that's your kind of getaway - and the likes of the SpaceX boss having the Oval Office for the next 4 years as his Airbnb pad, our natural satellite could get heavy traffic, including from notorious American and Indian tourists. Unlike places like Venice where Venetians have pushed back against over-tourism and ensured visitors are quantitatively and qualitatively regulated, the moon doesn't have resident lunatics. Unless, that is, they come out from under moon rocks to tell the aliens - from Earth - to 'Go back home!'