Friday, 17 July 2015

One small step for man...

Maybe it’s because of all this cool stuff on the news about Pluto—the planet that was, and then wasn’t—or the fact that I’ve always been fascinated with everything to do with outer space (excited for the Star Wars movie, anyone?!), but when I realized that July 20 is MOON DAY, I decided to dig up a few facts, just for fun.

Obviously I learned some neat things. Like, the fact that the moon isn’t actually round—it’s egg-shaped! And, everyone knows the moon rotates around the Earth, but did you know that it orbits at ten miles per hour and takes 27.3 days to fully circle? That seems like forever. (My grandpa’s tractor can probably go faster than that!)

A simple Google search will give you tons of facts about the moon, but I learned two fascinating things that I’m going to combine and use in a short story! The first is that every full moon has a name. You’re probably most familiar with Harvest Moon (which happens in September) but the July full moon is called THUNDER MOON. Sounds SPOOOKY, right?

That alone sparked a few story ideas. But then I learned that because the moon has no atmosphere or wind, footprints never disappear. That means when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on July 21, 1969, his footprints are still there.

You can see where I’m going with this, right? My character goes up in space and lands on the moon. When he steps off the shuttle, there are footprints everywhere…and some of them don’t look human. Dun-Da-Du-Dun!

Gotta jet! I’ve got a short story to write!

— Chase Superman Duffy

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