I made a lot of progress in "Sex on the Moon" this week. After inventorying thousands of moon rock samples, Thad Roberts started thinking about the monetary value of them. Thad had never been that interested in money, but as a college student with at least eleven thousand dollars of debt, the idea that NASA considered some forty thousand dollars worth of moon rocks to be "trash" because they had been experimented on was crazy. So he started concocting a plan to sell these moon rocks because a single gram of moon rock dust alone, was worth five million dollars. At first, Thad had no intention of letting this plan go anywhere besides his head, but then he met a fellow college student that could help him find a buyer.
When I was reading this book, I had forgotten that this was a true story. But now, as I think of the things that Thad Roberts is actually doing in the book: working at NASA, experimenting with lab samples, handling actual moon rocks from the Apollo missions, I become overwhelmed. I am just amazed at all of the things that a twenty- three year has accomplished. I also find the fact that he is a triple major to be very impressive. I had actually never heard of someone majoring in three things before and I could not imagine the challenge of doing it. When Thad joined the NASA program, he reinvented himself. He was normally a shy, sort of outcast but he was given the chance to be outgoing and popular. And he succeeded. Among his co-ops, he is something of a social butterfly. I really like the idea of being able to reinvent yourself. I would like to try it sometime, not that I am unhappy with who I am, I just think it would be a very interesting thing to try.
Book: Sex on the Moon Author: Ben Mezrich Time: 155 minutes Pages: 70
No comments:
Post a Comment