181 Bits of Lunacy
Recently I got a press release from NASA, called "181 Things To Do On The Moon" that asked the provocative — if non-musical — question:
If you woke up tomorrow morning and found yourself on the moon, what would you do?
Look for a spacesuit lept first to mind to avoid having my blood boil in the vacuum. Then I started to wonder….
- Jumping 18 feet high would quickly lose its novelty;
- Hitting a golf ball half a mile might be useful if I played golf;
- One could try to see what's on the dark side, but it's dark over there half the month;
- We're well past 2001 so looking for a buried, black monolith probably wouldn't be worth the effort.
Then I read the press release, my sense of wonder — not to mention fun — diminishing rapidly. It turned out they were looking for serious answers.
Don't get me wrong: they were good answers. The moon would be a good base for doing radio astronomy, certainly. Also good would be characterizing the high-energy particles in the solar wind. I'm sure there's much to learn from accurate dating of lunar craters. There were also business ideas that were creative but mostly curious or odd.
Anyway, I sort of liked my ideas better.
In: All, Curious Stuff, It's Only Rocket Science