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Aaaaaaand that’s our budget gone, but here’s the moon!
The rest of this video will be in Audiobook format.
I’m just kidding of course.
I mean, what’s a budget?
Well NASA certainly doesn’t know since the government doesn’t give them any anymore,
but maybe that’s because they left 809 objects on the moon—that’s more than the number
of stars in the solar system—and then spent more of their budget to catalogue every single
one of them into this neat little list and there’s nothing I love more than a good
document so I took a look.
In all, there are over 400,000 pounds worth of manmade material on the moon and that’s
the weight measure, not the currency of course, because the Apollo program alone, which accounts
for only a portion of the moon trash, cost about $100 billion in today’s dollars.
It’s safe to say that if you include shipping, this is the most expensive golf ball in the
worl… or rather, in existence.
This golf ball has a twin, in fact, and these two were brought by Astronaut Alan Shepard.
He snuck a club, which attached to a rock collector, and the two balls in his sock during
launch and, once he got to the moon, he teed them up.
His first shot was terrible, of course it didn’t help that he was wearing an 180 pound
suit, but his second flew over 600 feet which would of course be more impressive if the
moon didn’t have 1/6th the gravity of earth.
Shepard took the golf club back to earth, but both balls still lie on the lunar surface.
You see, during the Apollo program astronauts landed on the moon in the 33,000 pound lunar
module but they left the moon in the 10,300 pound ascent vehicle meaning that for each
mission thousands of pounds of material was left on the moon.
You have to fight gravity when launching from the moon so they just had to leave everything
unnecessary behind.
That includes, six Apollo descent stages, six American flags, three packs of wet wipes,
one bar of soap, six tongs, six throw up bags, and six gnomons, which I bet you didn’t
know is the part of a sundial that casts the shadow, but if you did I’m sure you’ll
contact me through every social channel possible to let me know.
Also on the catalogue are 100 2-dollar bills.
You see, during the Apollo mission most astronauts were paid around $17,000—roughly $107,000
today.
While that may seem like a lot, these astronauts were some the most highly educated, highly
trained individuals in existence going on some of the most dangerous and most expensive
missions ever undertaken.
You would think they should earn a bit more than a Wendy’s regional manager does, and
they thought so too, so they supplemented their income.
A normal two dollar bill is worth two dollars, but a two-dollar bill flown to the moon and
signed by an Apollo astronaut is worth, well, $2,987.50 according to this auction so on
Apollo 15 astronauts Dave Scott and Jim Irwin—two of the most American sounding people in existence—brought
these 100 bills to the moon, but then they left them there, accidentally.
Luckily they brought over 400 stamps to the moon as well with the intention of selling
them on but unluckily this resulted in a big scandal that led to them loosing their jobs.
But now, feces, urine, and vomit, because there are 96 bags of it on the lunar surface
because what else are you going to do—bring that with you in the tiny tin can on your
2 1/2 day journey back to earth?
Also on the moon are nail clippers, two pairs of earplugs, and a portrait of astronaut James
Irwin left by… astronaut James Irwin.
Huh.
But don’t worry American tax payer, NASA left some more useful stuff.
For example, they left four retroflectors, which are essentially fancy expensive mirrors,
so they could measure how far the moon is from earth by timing how long it takes for
a laser beam to return to earth.
Through this, we’ve learned that the moon is moving away from earth by 1.5 inches each
year or, as scientists call it, 3.8 centimeters.
Along with about a dozen other experiments, the astronauts brought some somber memorials
to those that worked to get them there.
All three Apollo 1 astronauts were killed during testing and so Apollo 11 brought and
left their mission patch on the lunar surface.
The fallen astronaut memorial was later left by Apollo 15 to honor the eight astronauts
and six cosmonauts who died while advancing Man’s quest for the moon.
What we do know is that whenever tourists first get to the moon, these 400,000 pounds
of trash will turn into some of the coolest museums in existence, but before space tourism
starts we need inexpensive rockets which you can learn to make with brilliant.org.
Ok, you’re not going to learn the complete process of making cheap reusable rockets from
an internet course, but with their classical mechanics course you can learn the fundamentals
of the physics behind how rockets work with their straight-forward explanations, simple
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