Events this last week proved how unintentionally fitting a name can sometimes be. The Peregrine Lunar Lander, a joint NASA-Astrobotic mission launched January 8th, is no longer expected to reach its goal. It was set to be the first commercial space probe, and the first American vehicle since the last Apollo mission in 1972, to land on the moon’s surface. However, several hours after launch, Astrobotic issued a photograph showing damage to the outer insulation of the craft. The statement noted that because of a propellant leak and difficulties in orienting the ship, a landing is now considered impossible. On social media, Astrobotic went on to state: “At this time, the goal is to get Peregrine as close to lunar distance as we can before it loses the ability to maintain its sun-pointing position and subsequently loses power.”
As a scholar of pilgrimage and pilgrimage studies, the name Peregrine (“pilgrim”) strikes me as uniquely suited to the Lunar Lander, which will now wander through space.
“Peregrinus” originally meant “foreigner” or “resident non-citizen [of the Roman Empire].” But already in ancient times it became the term for a pilgrim. For instance, a Roman pilgrim who travelled from Trier, in modern-day Germany carved his name “Peregrinus” as a thanksgiving on a votive offering stone at the Sulis-Minerva springs in Bath, UK, perhaps two millennia ago, and you can still see the stone there.
Eventually, the word “Peregrine” came to describe a special type of pilgrim, perhaps more related to the fate of the spacecraft that will now drift through the cosmos. My colleague and friend Sara Terreault at Concordia University, Montreal, describes (in this article: https://arrow.tudublin.ie/ijrtp/vol7/iss1/4/) how in the early Middle Ages, “peregrination” became a new type of pilgrimage that proceeded not toward a sacred destination, but away from a beloved homeland. The pain of this permanent separation from home was seen as a kind of “white” or living martyrdom, as opposed to the “red” or bloody martyrdoms of so many early Christian saints. Especially in Ireland and England, and amongst “Insular” monastics, this type of pilgrimage became a movement which sought holiness in exile and wandering. Bernice Lamb-Senechal has also written about this special type of ancient pilgrimage, here: https://arrow.tudublin.ie/ijrtp/vol8/iss1/9/. John Schultz and Ian Reader have identified a similar contemporary phenomenon among serial pilgrims on the Japanese Shikoku pilgrimage, in Pilgrims Until We Die: Unending Pilgrimage in Shikoku (Oxford University Press, 2021).
In the wake of the lunar let-down, scientists are scrambling to recast definitions of “success” for their mission. “Every challenge presents an opportunity to learn and refine our approach,” stated Dr Minkwan Kim of Southampton University in The Guardian. However, the failure of the Peregrine Lander can’t but be a blow to those who placed remains on the ship, hoping for them to have a permanent resting place on the moon. The human remains included DNA or ashes from George Washington, John F. Kennedy, and Dwight Eisenhower, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, Star Trek founder Gene Rodenberry, and several cast-members of the original Star Trek series … Scotty (James Doohan), Bones (DeForest Kelly), and Uhura (Nichelle Nichols). It’s noteworthy that the plans to deposit human remains on the moon went ahead over the formal protests of the Navajo Nation, for whom the moon is sacred, as it is to many Indigenous peoples (https://www.npr.org/2024/01/08/1223377817/navajo-moon-human-remains ).
Now, because of a propellant or valve failure, the Peregrine will become a true space wanderer. For better or worse, it will live up to its name. Like the ninth-century Irish pilgrims who set out in a boat with no sail or oars, trusting themselves to where the seas and winds might take them, Peregrine is truly on a course for the stars, boldly going where no one has gone before.
By http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn13/etmassey/star-trek-cast.jpg, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26911344
somethinggrand 
4 replies on “Be Careful What You Name a Lunar Lander”
Thanks for this Matthew! I hadn’t heard about the Navajo Nation protests, which makes sense in so many ways unlike the mission itself. Perhaps, in this instance, peregrination is the closest ending to redemption possible?
I believe so too, Allen! I saw a few online articles that talked about the fate of the Peregrine as sealed by the objection of the Navajo and their believe that the bodily remains would be sacrilege on the moon…
Aw! Too bad for the folks who, I’m sure, worked their tails off to get this space project off the ground (literally)! Of course they must be hugely disappointed. But you know what? This conveyance, now a true “space wanderer,” has a new mission: who knows where it will go, what it may discover? And many are the people (I, for one!) who wouldn’t mind their remains being on that ship, heading for the stars! Fly, Peregrine, fly!
P.S. – love the illustration, Sara Parks!
Yes, agreed! It seems maybe even MORE fitting to me that the remains are now free to wander through space, perhaps forever!