In 1969, as NASA was preparing to send the first men to the moon, it invited world leaders to compose goodwill messages to be recorded on a silicon disc and left on the Sea of Tranquility.

Most of them sent rather banal greetings, but Félix Houphouët-Boigny, president of Ivory Coast, sent this:

At the moment when man’s oldest dream is becoming a reality, I am very thankful for NASA’s kind attention in offering me the services of the first human messenger to set foot on the Moon and carry the words of the Ivory Coast. I would hope that when this passenger from the sky leaves man’s imprint on lunar soil, he will feel how proud we are to belong to the generation which has accomplished this feat.

I hope also that he would tell the Moon how beautiful it is when it illuminates the nights of the Ivory Coast. I especially wish that he would turn towards our planet Earth and cry out how insignificant the problems which torture men are, when viewed from up there.