Friday, December 26, 2003

My son, Andrew, asked me a question that nobody has asked me before.
Ever.
He asked, "What does the moon taste like?"

I thought about it for a minute.
"I suppose it tastes like dust," was my answer. That seemed to satisfy him and he went about his business (which had something to do with modeling clay and toy cars). But I wasn't satisfied with the answer. The questioned plagued me.
What DOES the moon taste like.
It's amazing to me that for all the money that mankind has spent researching the moon, gathering rocks, sending probes, planting flags, collecting data, filming spacewalks and the like; we've never answered this basic question. Sure, we have information about it's mass and density. We know it's orbital path. We understand it's affect on the tides. But has anybody ever eaten it?
Nope.

Maybe it does taste like dust, maybe just like the dust on earth. Perhaps, in a blind taste test, people would choose earth dust over moon dust.
"Which dirt would you rather sprinkle on your ice cream...?"

But perhaps not. Perhaps the moon is a wonderous taste sensation. Maybe it's delicious! Wouldn't that be a hoot? There it is, just a few thousand miles from us, an entire planet of yumminess.

And we've never even tasted it.

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