It started with a moon rock and a stick.

Artist Deby McKnight has turned the living room of her terraced house in Belfast into a recreation of the 1969 moon landing, complete with a moon lander, mission plans and small pieces of the moon that she bought for under 200 pounds.

The project began after a geologist friend told her she could buy a piece of lunar meteorite Bechar 003. Deby said the rock became the catalyst for the entire project and led her to imagine women stepping onto the lunar surface in her own home.

She set herself a mission to help 100 women “walk on the moon” in her living room. So far, 52 women have taken part.

Deby, 55, said: “I just really wanted to recreate that Buzz Aldrin coming down the ladder and Neil Armstrong taking the photograph.

“I knew I’d be able to recreate it once I got my piece of the moon .

“I didn’t have any plans to do anything like this before I got the bit of the moon.

“It just came to me in a flash, women have never walked on the moon but they are going to in my living room.

“I could just see the stepladders at the bottom of the room, I could see the gold soil around it.

“I looked at the piece of the moon and think ‘I will just get women to walk on the moon in my living room.’

“When I started I was getting more and more interest and I thought to myself it would be amazing if I got 100 women to do this, it is such a big number.

“I wanted it to be done in my home because women so often have been relegated to the domestic sphere and I thought right let’s do this in a domestic setting.”

The moon fragment she uses comes from the Bechar 003 meteorite, discovered in March 2022 in Algeria.

Deby said: “It is a polished end cut weighing 3.41g.

“On the unpolished side you can see the brown desert dust still in some of the crevices.

“Lunar meteorites are often sliced and polished so you can see the clasts in the matrix.”

To stage the moonwalk, Deby used a stepladder she had for stripping wallpaper. That, along with foil blankets, became the basis of her lunar lander.

She said: “I thought I have a piece of the moon and I have a stick and could attach the moon to the end of a stick.”

The piece of moon sits at the bottom of the ladder and women step on it as they get off.

Deby said: “If somebody says to you ‘what do you want?’ and you say ‘I want the moon on a stick’ you want something completely outrageous that you can’t get.

“I thought ‘I have a piece of the moon and I have a stick and could attach the moon to the end of a stick.’

“I knew I would be able to use that to just hold it at the bottom of the foot and then get the photograph.”

Deby worked with her niece, Jane McKnight, to design and make spacesuits and boots for participants. Jane will also be the 100th woman to take part.

Deby said: “She is very creative and she can look at something and know how to construct it.”

The project has drawn interest from women and girls of different ages, including children and neighbours.

She said: “I have had a seven-year-old and a three-year-old round with their mummy and the little girl wants to be an astronaut.

“They have really connected with it somehow.

“It’s tapping into the relaxing, having fun, people pretending to moonwalk around my living room.”

Deby added: “The project doesn’t mean anything unless the women actually do it.”

She also spoke about her 90-year-old neighbour, Betty, who joined in after stopping by.

Deby said: “I asked her if she would come in to my house for a cup of tea and to see what I had been up to.

“She was delighted, and happy to put on the outfit to get a photo of her on the moon in my living room.”

Deby added: “One of her family members in the US is married to a woman who worked for NASA all her working life.

“Betty ran back in to her house to show me the ‘Boarding Pass’ she got for the Artemis II mission, which NASA issue.

“We were both brought to tears watching the Artemis II crew lift off.”

Once she reaches 100 participants, Deby plans to attach all the photographs to a globe light she bought from a charity shop.

She said: “Once I have reached 100 women, I am properly attaching all of the photos onto a cheap globe light.

“Then I will turn the light on.”

She also plans to mount the moon fragment on the wall and light it with spotlights.

“Then I will take the moon on a stick and attach it to the wall in my living room,” she said.

“So when I switch them on, I will always have moonlight in my living room.

“We haven’t been there as women but we will get there eventually, so this is the closest we’ve got.

“It’s taking matters into our own hands to do it but in a really funny way.”

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