Comments

  2. Howard Brazee says

    About the “Dark side of the moon”, the word “dark” meant “unknown”, as in “dark Africa”.

    Of course, by either definition, the dark side of the moon is the inside.

  3. The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge says

    If you’re a space science and space technology buff like me, I highly recommend Scott’s channel–I’ve been subscribed for a long time. I don’t know what he’s talking about with his gaming posts, though….

  6. anchor says

    The problem with referring to the far side of the Moon as ‘the dark side’ is that it perpetuates popular misconception and does absolutely nothing whatsoever to clarify the actuality OR lend it any poetic elegance. Most people who employ the ‘dark side’ reference never realize that the Moon rotates under the illumination of the Sun during its monthly orbit which keeps one face perpetually toward Earth. It never occurs to them that at any given time it has a night side and a day side just like Earth does. I can’t begin to count how often I’ve had to explain that to school kids. Yet there has been noticeable progress in this simple example of science literacy over the years – kids today are more likely to understand it then their parents (who grew up before the internet) are.

    Then another space block-busting event happens and journalists screw it all up again with their fashionable headlines.

  7. UnknownEric the Apostate says

    …and when the probe landed, it found Syd Barrett stroking an octopus and muttering “Took you bloody long enough.”

  8. mykroft says

    Hopefully the Chinese will start talking about setting up a base on the Moon. Perhaps then we’ll have another “Sputnik moment” and the US will get serious about funding education and research. Not under this administration, of course.

  9. says

    8 mykroft
    You never know. Weren’t we going to Mars there, for about fifteen minutes, a while back? Good times, good times.