we are playing in space

Outer space. A good deal of time is spent pondering outer space in our house, more than normal recently with the recent and not at all exciting LCROSS lunar impact. We were probably expecting too much. We thought an unmanned space craft crashing into the moon is bound to make interesting viewing. It didn't. It was fuzzy, silent and really dull. (Click on the link and watch for yourself.)

We don't let small things like reality stand in our way. So we decided to create our own lunar impact. Cue lots of black paper, some silver pens and a couple of old space toys:

This is the moon. It was made out of silver paper, some white felt circles and some little sequins. Do I need to point out that none of this is to scale? No? Good.

This is EB carefully placing every thing in space, ready for lunar impact. The one major benefit of watching the non event on NASA TV was EB's improved "Ground Control" dialogue.


It took minutes but created two hours of fun, which to me is the best kind of crafting you can do.

On an educational note, it also led to an interesting conversation about what the moon is really made out of, and from there the tangent was rocks and minerals and so now we are embarking on a new project: Rocks and Minerals. Any useful links or resources would be most appreciated.