Moon Aged Daydream

As a young kid my bedroom wallpaper used to have colourful drawings of Astronauts, Spaceships and Space Stations on it. Back then I thought that this would be an exciting future that I could participate in. Sadly, the progress of manned space exploration hasn't been as fast as most people had hoped. The last time man was on the Moon was in December 1972! Over 35 years ago!!! We should be holidaying on Mars already!

This lunchtime on BBC News24 there was a report about the European Space Agency inviting applications for Astronaut jobs. Being unemployed right now, my mind went ping - this could be a dream come true... OK let's see, they require people aged 27 to 37 with science degrees. Doh! I'm too old. And too thick!

Feeling slightly useless in that I'd never be able to live out my Buck Rogers fantasy, I was soon cheered up by reading in The Register that there could be another way to get myself into space. Sort of. NASA are currently inviting people to enroll their names onto a chip that will be embedded in the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), the first mission in NASA's planned return to the moon. 'LRO will launch in late 2008 with the objectives to finding safe landing sites, locate potential resources, characterize the radiation environment and test new technology.' Cool, I'll be on it! 5-4-3-2-1 ...


NASA LRO webpage