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Things To Be Found On The Moon
September 9, 2009 12:42 PM   RSS feed for this thread Subscribe

Things To Be Found On The Moon
posted by yegga (53 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite

33. Defecation Collection Device (4)

Way to go, guys. You left shit on the moon. What, are you my country relatives?
posted by COBRA! at 12:46 PM on September 9 [2 favorites has favorites]


I am sad that I had to look up the word "Emesis". Also puzzled that astronaut poop wasn't listed.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:46 PM on September 9


Oh, duh. Missed it somehow.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:47 PM on September 9


Perhaps soon to sadly include Chandrayaan-1.
posted by jquinby at 12:47 PM on September 9 [1 favorite has favorites]


One trillion dollars.
posted by telstar at 12:48 PM on September 9


Got it, got it, need it, got it, doubles, got it...
posted by WinnipegDragon at 12:53 PM on September 9 [2 favorites has favorites]


They left behind their baggage carousel.
posted by exogenous at 12:56 PM on September 9


16. Tongs (1)
17. Small Scoop (1)
18. Scongs (1)

Tongs + small scoop = scongs?
posted by slimepuppy at 1:00 PM on September 9 [1 favorite has favorites]


Didn't we leave like three lunar rovers up there? If I was rich enough to be eccentric, I'd secretly launch my own moon mission just to get up there and leave those buggies wheel-less up on concrete blocks.

Because eventually we are going to start photographing the surface with enough resolution to see that kind of thing, and I really like the idea of millions of conspiracy theorists trying to figure that one out.

I'd also leave as many strange footprints as possible. Currently, I'm favoring ostrich tracks.
posted by quin at 1:01 PM on September 9 [4 favorites has favorites]


Hey, I just found this blog of some guy building a replica space suit.
posted by exogenous at 1:02 PM on September 9 [1 favorite has favorites]


Our dreams.
posted by blue_beetle at 1:03 PM on September 9 [3 favorites has favorites]


This is just Apollo 11's stuff, of course.
posted by gubo at 1:07 PM on September 9


See also the Space Archaeology Wiki, and the work of Alice Gorman.

I teach a module on space archaeology and it is quite fascinating what is out there. The first artifacts on the moon were Soviet propaganda plaques and pins, and there are over 6,000 of these now on the surface of the moon since 1959. There are multiple works of art on the moon, as well as a golf ball, golf club, and a home-made javelin. There is also art on Mars and Venus, there are tombstones on the Moon and Mars, and there are several hundred human bodies in one orbit or another. The total weight of other-world archaeology is also impressive:

Surface  Total Estimated Mass (kg)
Venus  22,628
The Moon 170,996
Mars 8,053
Eros 487
Itokawa: less than 5

posted by Rumple at 1:08 PM on September 9 [1 favorite has favorites]


Solar Wind Composition Staff (1)

Save versus electromagnetic radiation or be turned to dust!
posted by Artw at 1:13 PM on September 9 [5 favorites has favorites]


78. Footprint

This makes me laugh.
posted by Reverend John at 1:13 PM on September 9


Goddamned humans -- wherever we go, we spread our trash all over and then leave it there.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 1:15 PM on September 9


Not listed, but there:


  1. Barack Obama's birth certificate

  2. Colonel Sanders' original fried chicken recipe

  3. One (1) lucky sock, soiled

  4. Three (3) metric tonnes of 3rd grade homework from the period of 1929-1957

  5. All known copies of the "Who REALLY Killed JFK?" CIA memo from 1965

  6. The goddamned cable remote


posted by briank at 1:24 PM on September 9


Goddamned humans -- wherever we go, we spread our trash all over and then leave it there.

Trash on Mount Everest.
"According to estimates, there are nearly 120 tons of litter and 120 dead bodies on Mt. Everest."

posted by ericb at 1:25 PM on September 9


I am impressed that they left a mission patch for Grissom, White, and Chaffee up there.
posted by Ber at 1:25 PM on September 9 [3 favorites has favorites]


and there are several hundred human bodies in one orbit or another.

Could you expand on that Rumple? Maybe I'm clueless, but I didn't think we had that many deaths off-planet yet.
posted by never used baby shoes at 1:26 PM on September 9


Not Ernie
posted by koeselitz at 1:26 PM on September 9


there are several hundred human bodies in one orbit or another

Whaaa? I'm not so sure I believe that one. I think there was a claim, a while back, that there might be a dead cosmonaut either in orbit or who had somehow (defying the laws of physics) escaped Earth orbit and was "out there" somewhere, but it had been pretty well debunked.

But "several hundred" human bodies? Did they get there on DC-8s courtesy of Xenu, by any chance?
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:28 PM on September 9


I'm wondering how they left their excursion suits behind. Did they have lighter-duty pressure suits they put on before ascent, and pushed the bulky excursion suits out the door as part of preparing to leave? (I wasn't under the impression the LEM had an airlock.)
posted by aught at 1:30 PM on September 9


Cheese Slicer (1)
Crackers (1)
Wallace and Gromit DVD (1)
posted by msbutah at 1:31 PM on September 9 [3 favorites has favorites]


How is the cremated remains launching business doing these days, anyway?
posted by Artw at 1:33 PM on September 9


How is the cremated remains launching business doing these days, anyway?

Website's still up, for whatever that's worth. Here's the launch schedule. Line forms to the left.
posted by jquinby at 1:36 PM on September 9


Kadin2048: But "several hundred" human bodies? Did they get there on DC-8s courtesy of Xenu, by any chance?

People pay for that. Haven't you heard about that?
posted by koeselitz at 1:36 PM on September 9


Thanks Artw and koeselitz.
posted by never used baby shoes at 1:54 PM on September 9


Didn't we leave like three lunar rovers up there? If I was rich enough to be eccentric, I'd secretly launch my own moon mission just to get up there and leave those buggies wheel-less up on concrete blocks.

I'd just steal one and cruise around in that shit. Maybe add hydraulics.
posted by spaltavian at 1:55 PM on September 9


they for got this

which is 10 tons of awesome. so cool....and so fitting too.
posted by ShawnString at 1:57 PM on September 9


Great post --- needs the roadsidepicnic tag.
posted by Dr Dracator at 2:00 PM on September 9


Let's not forget this bad boyski, comrades.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:00 PM on September 9


Careful with the lowrider hydraulics on the moon. One of my homies was competing there with his '64 Impala and acccidentally went into orbit.
posted by exogenous at 2:00 PM on September 9


My grandkids are going to go on the most bad-ass scavenger hunt EVER.
posted by brundlefly at 2:15 PM on September 9


9. Empty Food Bags (2+)

Apparently my PSAs of weeping Mooninites just didn't quite have enough of an effect...
posted by FatherDagon at 2:30 PM on September 9 [1 favorite has favorites]


Cheese Slicer (1)
Crackers Toast (1)
Wallace and Gromit DVD (1)

FTFY.
posted by brand-gnu at 2:42 PM on September 9


(1) Iron Chicken
(1) Family of pink knitted creatures
posted by Artw at 2:51 PM on September 9 [2 favorites has favorites]


Whenever I smoke a cigarette I always put it out on the moon and leave the butt there. That's why it's that color.
posted by fuq at 3:00 PM on September 9 [1 favorite has favorites]


aught: The procedure was, after the last walk on the surface, to suit back up but without the PLSS (backpack). They'd depressurize the vehicle, open the front hatch, and throw out the "trash." Which is to say that they jettisoned everything not needed for the trip up from the surface, into orbit, and back into the Command and Service Module (CSM). Weight was critical on ascent so things like the backpacks, spare gloves, lunar overshoes, and actual trash got left behind. They kept the small, emergency oxygen supply systems that normally attach to the top of the backpack in case an external transfer to the CSM was required. It was also used on later flights, as a backup to an umbilical, during a spacewalk to retrieve film from a science instrument bay towards the back of the CSM.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 3:09 PM on September 9


Scongs Guess they needed tongs & a scoop both separately and combined. Be prepared!
posted by wildcrdj at 3:13 PM on September 9


hundred human bodies in one orbit or another

Sources: Russians (maybe), Celesties, Inc. (services include launch ashes/ space burial /space funeral/ cremation memorials), causalities of the Space Mafia/ Astral Yakuza battles, and countless redshirts.
posted by filthy light thief at 3:31 PM on September 9


omg moon gnomon
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 4:04 PM on September 9 [1 favorite has favorites]


I remember reading somewhere that because of the atmosphere or mostly lack of it, all the junk we left on the moon is in the same condition it was when we left it. On the one hand, that seems plausible, but on the other, no way. I do wonder what the bag of shit looks like.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 5:08 PM on September 9


and there are several hundred human bodies in one orbit or another.

Memorial Space Flights

Even though this are small portions of cremated humans, from an archaeological perspective each little human briquette is a burial and is a "human body" in the sense of being the physical remains of a past human being, and would be recorded as such in an archaeological report, the same as if it were a single human toe bone. I admit I pulled the "several hundred" from my ass because I can't keep track, but there have been numerous flights, some low orbit/ballistic, and others designed to actually leave the solar system. So its in the ballpark.

Again, how we are slowly colonizing space is consistent with how we have colonized other areas. There is an advance party of some kind, a transient exploration, the deposition of symbolic artifacts, until finally people "move in" for good. The prehistoric discovery of Hawai'i, Madagascar, NEw Zealand follow this pattern of several hundred years of transient exploration followed by a sudden influx. So does the European rediscovery of places such as Australia and New Zealand, both of which were know for hundreds of years to Europeans before they established colonies there. Even North America saw at least a century of lag between discovery and first successful settlement, 6 centuries if we count Vinland (and we should).
Then, consider Antarctica, which was discovered in 1812 IIRC, (fulfilling a quest for it, which is remarkable because Terra Australis Incognita had been predicted to be there for millennia on cosmological and 'earth balancing" grounds) and which has a seasonal occupation of up to 10,000 and a winter population of up to 1,000 now, and has over 75 "habitation sites" in an archaeological sense on it, as well as numerous scatters of miscellaneous crap. At least two babies have been born on Antarctica. The parallels in time scale, mode and tempo between how we are colonizing Antarctica, the moon, and space more generally and how humans colonized most of the earth over the last 75,000 years are actually remarkable and speak to what it means to be human confronted by the lands unknown.
posted by Rumple at 5:37 PM on September 9 [3 favorites has favorites]


Alice Kramden (1)
posted by cazoo at 6:16 PM on September 9 [7 favorites has favorites]


You are on the moon. It is cold as hell. You are items scattered about.
>look items
You see:
A Lunar Module Descent Stage
An American flag
Space boots
>get flag
Taken.
>get descent stage
You can't take that!
>raise kids
Don't you think Mars would be a better place?

posted by plinth at 7:56 PM on September 9 [2 favorites has favorites]


My grandkids are going to go on the most bad-ass scavenger hunt EVER.

Andy Griffith already got all the good stuff.
posted by Lazlo at 8:12 PM on September 9


13. Commemorative Plaque attached to the Lunar Module Descent Leg... The plaque is signed by the Apollo 11 crew and President Richard M. Nixon.

Only four people left their names on the moon. And one of them is Richard M. Nixon.
posted by twoleftfeet at 10:15 PM on September 9


I do wonder what the bag of shit looks like.
Of all the items, that would be the easiest to simulate here on Earth, I guess.

While this is sort of cool in a way, it makes me cringe that we can't seem to explore anywhere without leaving our shit all over the place.
posted by dg at 4:57 AM on September 10


plinth: >raise kids
Don't you think Mars would be a better place?


There was some reason why we weren't going to do that, though, wasn't there? I can't quite... let's see, it was something about... oh yeah, maybe because it's cold as hell.

Try again, rocket guy.
posted by koeselitz at 7:03 AM on September 10


Nobody's mentioned the big black monolith up there yet.
posted by koeselitz at 7:04 AM on September 10


ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE.

RICHARD NIXON DIED OWING ME MONEY. THAT IS NOT A SIGNATURE. THAT IS AN I.O.U.

HOLLA AT A MONOLITH, DICK.
posted by Minus215Cee at 2:03 PM on September 10 [2 favorites has favorites]


Why NASA Should Bomb the Moon to Find Water: Analysis
posted by homunculus at 12:09 PM on September 11


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