@dewitty1 / dewitty1.tumblr.com
as a child being told "the moon controls the tides" with no additional explanation was like. oh okay. you want me to believe in magic? you're talking about magic right now? okay. fine
sorry. only semi-related but i simply wasn't ready for "the sun is a distant gorilla". thank you NASA
“the moon is made of cheese” is obviously a myth, but over-exploitation of the moon’s natural resources led to a catastrophic depletion in cheese deposits so now what little cheese remains is of low-quality and next to impossible to extract
also most of the moon cheese you see for sale these days is artificial; if you read the fine print, it’s “produced under moon-like conditions”
authentic lunar cheese is incredibly expensive ever since legal harvesting was outlawed in the 1990’s to allow cheese deposits to recover, but the black market demand has ravaged what’s left—illicit cheese harvesting is incredibly dangerous and something like 4 out of 9 cheese smugglers actually die within three years of taking up the trade
part of the reason the moon cheese ecosystem collapsed is because of anthropogenic contamination of near-surface milk aquifers (milkifers) in the 1970’s. insufficient decontamination methods used on cheese harvesting equipment and spacecraft resulted in the introduction of terrestrial bacterial species that displaced, out-competed, or directly killed huge swaths of the indigenous bacteria, slowing the lactification process tremendously.
further degradation occurred due to large mining operations disrupting rennet mole habitat and migration routes; as many moles were unable to access their traditional whelping basins, populations became isolated and suffered genetic bottlenecking that decreased overall fitness, litter size, and rennet production in most remaining populations. efforts to expand the gene pool by reintroducing captive-raised rennet moles have been met with some success; due to slow maturation, rennet mole studies have not been done beyond F5 generations to assess long-term population stability.
the scientific community mourns the tragic passing of our respected colleague, premier moon cheese researcher and conservationist Dr. Nadia Ardavan, found dead from a head wound at her field station on September 14, 2020. Dr. Ardavan was an outspoken proponent of moon restoration efforts and a self-professed “rabble-rouser” who frequently found herself butting heads with corporate interests. investigators found evidence of a struggle; foul-play is suspected in Dr. Ardavan’s untimely death. she is survived by her sons, Cosmo “Bullrush” Ardavan-Mackenzie and Caligula Ardavan-Jalaqua, and her widow, Dr. Miriam Jalaqua. Dr. Jalaqua requests that donations be made in honor of Dr. Ardavan’s life and works to the Rennet Mole Conservancy.
british colonizers destroying centuries of moon ecology
Why not just harvest the other moons? There is more then one moon in the galaxy just saying.
Only Earth’s moon, Luna, produces cheese. It is unlikely that other moons within our Solar System have conditions favorable to creating cheese deposits on a geologically noteworthy scale.
Emerging evidence suggests that the layer of ubiquitous red dust covering the surface of Mars is actually paprika–the desiccated, pulverized residue of a primordial Capsicumious Period. Ancient jungles of pepper once covered the Red Planet’s surface in a lush carpet of dense vegetation. Unlike the widely extolled moon cheese, Martian paprika is generally considered of vastly inferior quality to fresh paprika made from Earth peppers.
Does that mean Europa is a soup? It gets blasted by a large amount of radiation so I assume that means it always in a microwave. I am really interested and am considering studying the other moons, and our own, to see if they could be used for future emergency food reserves.
Unfortunately not; only Earth’s moon has been proven to produce edible foodstuffs (Martian paprika is pending FDA approval and is unlikely to pass). There is, however, a recently-discovered exoplanet, colloquially known as “The Meat Planet”, described here:
The Meat Planet may be too far away for humanity to visit (or taste) in the foreseeable future, but some scientists hypothesize that Uranus may be edible, though bacterial contamination of acquired samples makes experimentation inadvisable.
This is fucking stupid, the Moon is NOT made of cheese, cheese is processed from Milk that you get from Cows or Goats. Neither abimal existed when Rocks formed in space
The Moon isn’t “made” of cheese any more than Earth is “made” of soil–it’s something that’s produced through natural processes similar (but not identical to) the cheese we get from cows and goats. We are still unsure whether the Moon’s milk deposits were there when Luna was formed or if they arrived later; it is possible that lipid-rich asteroids first brought the building blocks of dairy onto the lunar surface and infused the crust and mantle with the chemical components that would ultimately lead to the synthesis of groundmilk and the eventual formation of moon cheese.
So wait, I might actually get to eat Uranus?
Theoretically, and with proper decontamination measures.
I love your blog and your space asks but please pray tell what's the moon boom that jumpingjacktrash mentioned?
have you ever looked up into the night sky and wondered, why the moon is?
well, you're not alone! scientists and learnéd scholars across the ages have been baffled by our celestial neighbor.
WHY, is our Moon so proportionally fucking huge? (it's more than a quarter the size of the Earth! that's COMPLETELY FUCKING INSANE AND BLOWS EVERY OTHER MOON IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM OUT OF THE METAPHORICAL WATER)
WHY, is the Moon made up of much of the same materials as the Earth?
and WHY, is Earth's magnetic field so massively overpowered that it can shield the surface from interstellar and solar radiation, allowing life to develop and paving the way for you to even ask these questions in the first place? (that one might not sound related, but I promise you it is so just bear with me)
well, it all comes down to the Theia Impact Hypothesis, or, OPERATION MOON BOOM.
here, we focus on the third planet from the Sun, which is, surprisingly, NOT Earth.
not yet.
no, this unnamed rocky world is slightly smaller than Venus, and is formed of mostly-molten rock that's still settling into itself as our nascent solar system sorts itself out.
ENTER STAGE LEFT, THEIA.
Theia is a rocky planetoid about the size of Mars, on a wild and unstable orbit around the Sun that regularly brings it within spitting distance of our unnamed third rock! and today, it will get A Bit Too Close.
the two planets slam into each other with wild disregard for road safety, disintegrating their outer layers into a massive debris field that will take hundreds of millions of years to settle and fusing their planetary cores together into a single rough oblong of molten iron! BAM! WHAPPO!
but settle the debris does, as gravity takes a gentle but firm hold of this huge mess and gradually reshapes it into two familiar faces...
ENTER STAGE RIGHT: EARTH AND MOON.
that's right, you're standing on top of the alchemically-fused corpses of, not one, but TWO planets right now! our newly-reborn Earth and its singular orbiting satellite are formed from the same debris field and share a lot of similar material. and because the Moon was Made, and not a domesticated planetoid that wandered too close and got trapped in the orbit of a larger body, it's just ludicrously HUGE compared to its partner.
and getting back to that magnetic field thing, the whole reason Earth Can Have Big Field Pls is because Theia dumped so much extra iron into the Core that it generates a MUCH more powerful field than our neighboring planets, even the ones that are just slightly smaller than Earth!
the only reason that life can exist at all is because Theia took one for the team and reshaped the solar system.
so the next time you look up into the celestial dome and spot our closest neighbor, raise a salute to Theia, gone but not forgotten.
Jupiter and 4 of her moons peaking out from behind our moon!
Full Pink Moon in Scorpio by Rami Ammoun (Apr. 2021)
Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos want to colonize outer space to save humanity, but they couldn’t care less about protecting the rights of workers here on earth.
Musk’s SpaceX just won a $2.9 billion NASA contract to land astronauts on the moon, beating out Bezos.
The money isn’t a big deal for either of them. Musk is worth $179.7 billion. Bezos, $197.8 billion. Together, that’s almost as much as the bottom 40 percent of Americans combined.
And the moon is only their stepping-stone.
Musk says SpaceX will land humans on Mars by 2026 and wants to establish a colony by 2050. Its purpose, he says, will be to ensure the continued survival of our species.
“If we make life multiplanetary, there may come a day when some plants and animals die out on Earth but are still alive on Mars,” he tweeted.
Bezos is also aiming to build extraterrestrial colonies, but in space rather than on Mars. He envisions “very large structures, miles on end” that will “hold a million people or more each.”
But Musk and Bezos are treating their workers like, well, dirt.
Last spring, after calling government stay-at-home orders “fascist” and tweeting “FREE AMERICA NOW,” Musk reopened his Tesla factory in Fremont, California before health officials said it safe to do so. Almost immediately, 10 Tesla workers came down with the virus. As cases mounted, Musk fired workers who took unpaid leave. Seven months later, at least 450 Tesla workers had been infected.
Musk’s production assistants, as they’re called, earn $19 an hour – hardly enough to afford rent and other costs of living in northern California. Musk is virulently anti-union. A few weeks ago, the National Labor Relations Board found that Tesla illegally interrogated workers over suspected efforts to form a union, fired one and disciplined another for union-related activities, threatened workers if they unionized and barred employees from communicating with the media.
Bezos isn’t treating his earthling employees much better. His warehouses impose strict production quotas and subject workers to seemingly arbitrary firings, total surveillance and 10-hour workdays with only two half-hour breaks – often not enough time to get to a bathroom and back. Bezos boasts that his workers get $15 an hour, but that comes to about $31,000 a year for a full-time worker, less than half the U.S. median family income. And no paid sick leave.
Bezos has fired at least two employees who publicly complained about lack of protective equipment during the pandemic. To thwart the recent union drive in Bessemer, Alabama, Amazon required workers to attend anti-union meetings, warned they’d have to pay union dues (untrue – Alabama is a “right-to-work” state), and threatened them with lost pay and benefits.
Musk and Bezos are the richest people in America and their companies are among the country’s fastest growing. They thereby exert huge influence on how other chief executives understand their obligations to employees.
The gap between the compensation of CEOs and average workers is already at a record high. They inhabit different worlds.
If Musk and Bezos achieve their extraterrestrial aims, these worlds could be literally different. Most workers won’t be able to escape into outer space. A few billionaires are already lining up.
The super-rich have always found means of escaping the perils of everyday life. During the plagues of the 17thcentury, European aristocrats decamped to their country estates. During the 2020 pandemic, wealthy Americans headed to the Hamptons, their ranches in Wyoming or their yachts.
The rich have also found ways to protect themselves from the rest of humanity – in fortified castles, on hillsides safely above smoke and sewage, in grand mansions far from the madding crowds. Some of today’s super rich have created doomsday bunkers in case of nuclear war or social strife.
But as earthly hazards grow – not just environmental menaces but also social instability related to growing inequality – escape will become more difficult. Bunkers won’t suffice. Not even space colonies can be counted on.
I’m grateful to Musk for making electric cars and to Bezos for making it easy to order stuff online. But I wish they’d set better examples for protecting and lifting the people who do the work.
It’s understandable that the super wealthy might wish to escape the gravitational pull of the rest of us. But there’s really no escape. If they’re serious about survival of the species, they need to act more responsibly toward working humans here on terra firma.
Takahashi Hiroaki (高橋弘明), The Moon and Mt. Ishiyama (月と山石山), ca. 1936.
