Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Heads or Tails #57 -- How would you change where you live?

Welcome once again to Heads or Tails, the meme brought to you each Tuesday by Barb, of all things Skittles. This is week number 57 for HoT and so, for variety's sake (get it?) our stern taskmistress has called "Tails." Participants are obliged to write about how they would change where they live.

I know what you want, Barb: You want me to say that I'd want my mortgage paid and a new roof and (as long as we're wishing) a new furnace, too. All of which is true. But I choose to go in a different direction.

Straight up.


What you're looking at, according to the University of Virginia Astronomy Department website from which I lifted this image, is of the Moon "looking south from orbit over the southern edge of Mare Imbrium. The large crater at left center is Erathosthenes. Terrain around the crater is older and more rugged than the mare plains at the bottom of the picture.... The crater just visible edge-on on the lunar horizon at the lower right is Copernicus." (The photo was taken from Apollo 17, the last manned lunar expedition -- in 1972.)

Now I'm not saying that this is the precise neighborhood to which I'd relocate tomorrow, if given the chance, but, yes, I'd like to live on the Moon.

I think we -- meaning our species -- should have begun colonizing the Moon decades ago. Things should be settled to such an extent by now that even middle-aged persons in not-spectacular-condition (me, for example) could live there in relative comfort. (Climbing stairs would be easier since the Moon has only one-sixth of Earth's gravitational pull.)

I should be fretting about how my yet unborn grandchildren will fare growing up in the newly developing colonies on Mars or in the Asteroid Belt.

None of this has happened.

But it should have.

4 comments:

Barb said...

Heinz 57.. :P

I have to say you're the only person (so far) who has listed the moon in their HoT post. You get bonus points for that. :)

Ralph said...

I say the moon should be colonized if for no other reason that it is probably awash in great metals like titanium and nickel. I'd hate to live there, though, and have a clear of the place I'd be better off being on...

Tumblewords: said...

Excellent! I often wondered why we didn't and why we don't.

Anonymous said...

I've always wondered the same thing ... when I was little, the Jetson's was one of my favorite cartoons. As a 5 year old, I imagined that when I was "an adult", that's what the world would be like. But, over 35 years later, not only are we not colonizing the moon, I don't even have a robot maid named Rosie (or any maid for that matter). Unthinkable.