Moonshots and Butter Brickle

2026-04-18T20:07:41Z

If you asked me as a kid what I wanted to do when I grew up, I had an immediate answer. No hemming and hawing between plumber and proctologist, no sir. It had been clear since I watched the first Apollo Moon landing at 9 years old, on a black and white console TV:

I was going to be science officer on a starship.

Yes, I was aware the position didn't actually exist at the time, but we'd just landed on the moon! By the time I entered high school we'd have a city on Mars, and by the time I graduated college I'd be shipping out to explore the galaxy. I already had a blue sweatshirt with a logo on it, and a Spock haircut.

It wasn't the same logo, but what the heck; and as long as I kept that haircut, I wouldn't have to worry about interested girls distracting me.

Which is why I gave up the haircut in middle school, but never mind.

Back then it seemed obvious our future was in space. Why? Well, the example of Europeans continuing to explore the Americas after Columbus (or the Vikings) is problematic--although if they hadn't, I wouldn't be here. Still, the Native Americans themselves once followed the path of exploration:

"What's over that next hill?"

"Food, maybe? I see there's a glacier coming up behind us, so maybe we should check it out."

By high school manned space exploration seemed a thing of the past, but I was still optimistic of humanity's future in space. I signed up for every science class my school offered, starting my freshman year with what was called General Science. I excelled, earning an A+ and a certificate of merit. I wanted to take Physical Science next, but the only opening on my sophomore schedule was Chemistry.

My science teacher cautioned me that maybe I shouldn't jump ahead so fast. I ignored him. My science teacher was very smart. I wasn't.

As a kid I had every Apollo related toy, including this one.

Because, you see, going into space takes math. Lots of math. Taking Intro to Algebra in my freshman year taught me my proficiency in math was, well, not proficient. In fact, I stunk at it. But what the heck, science isn't all about math. How much math could there possibly be in chemistry?

And that's how I learned I would never be a science officer.

Science is cool, it really is. It's just that some people can do science, and some people are better off watching other people do science. Now we have Artemis returning to the Moon, several decades too late even if I was good at science. With my prostate, I'm better off not being in a place where peeing is a challenge, anyway.

(No, I'm not going to debate anyone with the idiotic idea that the Apollo missions were faked. That myth has been busted over and over, and I spend most of my time on social media trying to avoid stupid arguments.)

This, by the way, is an anime character named Artemis. My household was nuts for Sailor Moon.

But should we go back to the Moon, with all the expense, with so many problems on Earth? I mean, we've been there. Once we invented chocolate ice cream, was there any point in inventing Butter Brickle?

Maybe that's a bad comparison: I hate Butter Brickle. But humanity is never going to be wiped out by a five mile wide scoop of frozen Butter Brickle, or for that matter a super volcano made of cheese, which would at least smell good for an instant before our nose hairs burned. The technology used for Butter Brickle isn't likely to bring great new inventions and products to the masses. Also, to be honest, there's no joy of discovery from exploring Butter Brickle, unless it's your first birthday party.

So I'm going to say yes, it is worth the risk and expense to explore space. Not just for the science and economic benefits, but also for the pure joy of discovering things. We could easily find the money by zapping government waste with a big Butter Brickle colored space laser.

After all, how do we know there's not some new kind of chocolate out there?

Our books don’t involve space travel—yet. But there’s bound to be something for everyone else.

· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

· Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

· Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

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· Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

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· Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter

· Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

· Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

· Audible: https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf

Remember: It was discovery that brought us the ability to print books in the first place.

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Apollo: One Giant Leap For Mankind

2019-07-19T00:43:41Z

It was one of my earliest memories.

Six days earlier, I turned seven. It was one heck of a birthday present.

Human beings landing on the surface of another heavenly body. It's hard to remember, fifty years after, just how remarkable that was. In 1969 it had been only twelve years since anything made by humans was launched into orbit, let alone 300,000 miles further on to the Moon.Only eight years before (fourteen months before my birth), the first American was shot into space.

It was all new.

I remember it being taller.

Cars were being designed with rocketship-like fins on them. Star Trek and Lost in Space were on TV. (My very earliest memory is hiding behind my mother while she ironed clothes and watched a particularly scary scene from Star Trek.) My Christmas gifts? Action figures from the Matt Mason astronaut collection, and a complete Apollo rocket that, with a click, shot the Apollo capsule into the air.

We were space nuts because space was, perhaps literally, the future.

Or so we thought.

"I'm Matt Mason, and I"m bendy!"

I remember one aunt claiming that the Moon landings never really happened. Yes, that was a thing even back then. The rest of us sat transfixed in front of our television sets, which themselves were the size of an Apollo capsule, and similarly colorless. We watched the launches, the landings, the splashdowns, even the retrieval as helicopters set the capsules down on the deck of a handy aircraft carrier.

One day our teacher brought a portable TV into the classroom--by portable, I mean it could be picked up by one person, assuming that one person had been working out. She adjusted the rabbit ears until a kinda-sorta picture came on, and we sat silently, watching one of the Apollo capsules splash down in the Pacific.

Thanks to Dee Williams, who gave me these as a reminder of the kitchen's piece of Apollo.

It was an early experiment in bringing technology into the classroom, and it sure worked for us ... although I wouldn't see a TV in class again until high school.

Oddly enough, I have no memory of the Apollo 13 crisis, and I wonder now if my parents didn't keep the news from me. Maybe they figured, correctly, that I had anxieties of my own without learning that my real life heroes were only human, after all. But otherwise, I was all about space.

Just to be clear, this is the real thing.

Can it really have been fifty years?

What the hell happened? We were supposed to be on Mars by now. Where's the Moonbase? Why isn't Southwest Airlines booking cheap flights to a space station? Where the heck are the ray guns, and the communicators?

Well, okay, never mind the communicator.

I was supposed to be up there, dammit. During winter I'd tie the hood of my coat tight around my face, and pretend I was in a spacesuit. Granted that space is warmer than Indiana winters of my youth, but still.

I'm what people call a fiscal conservative. I don't think any government should spend beyond their means, and I'm very much against throwing money around just because you can print more. Heaven knows manned space exploration is almost as expensive as a presidential election campaign.

But this is one area in which we should be spending more.

"That's one small step for half a billion ..."

The advantages of space exploration are enormous. Big enough to justify the expense, with all the other problems in the world? I would argue yes, but not just the missions themselves. It requires an investment in science, and that requires an investment in people: education, interest, employment. Discoveries that will lead to another wave of innovation and invention. Imagine the materials, knowledge, and technology that came out of the Apollo era, and imagine that continuing on, with a new generation.

A new generation. I think one of the problems with the world today is that we've lost our love of discovery just for the sake of discovery. Yes, exploration can bring us that new technology, those new jobs, maybe solutions to today's problems. But more important than that, it's time to make kids wonder again.

We need to be able to sit our kids in front of the TV again, and let them see real wonders, going on right before their eyes. Well, maybe not TV; maybe online, or on their phones, or visors, or their cyber-optic implants. Mankind has always thrilled in that exploration, that discovery. Reestablishing manned space exploration--preferably as a species, rather than as a country--might be just what it takes to get us moving forward as a people again.

Okay, so maybe it's too late for me to go up there. But I have grandchildren, now. And maybe, fifty years from now, people will be telling the story of when they landed ... somewhere.

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Slightly Off the Mark

Moonshots and Butter Brickle

Apollo: One Giant Leap For Mankind