Space travel and reproduction

Tonight Levi and Noah entertained themselves for quite a while on Google Earth. They visited Ethiopia, discovered islands, dove under the sea, and flew around the earth. Then I showed then that there is even a Google Moon.

That blew their mind.

They wanted to see videos of astronauts jumping on the moon, and then jumping from the moon back to earth. When I explained you couldn't jump down off the moon to earth, they wanted to know how the astronauts got back. So we had to look up videos of lunar ascent modules launching off the surface of the moon.

This lead to further questioning about physics, science, and engineering.

Instead of the typical Dr. Suess or Curious George bedtime story, we ended up in their room with the lights off, a flashlight perched on the edge of the dresser, a half illuminated globe, and an orbiting inflatable soccer ball moon.

And Dad totally geeked out that his kids are actually interested in science, explaining the rotation of the earth, sunrise, and solar eclipses.

My poor boys will be on their own when it comes to throwing a spiral football, or learning what on earth the infield fly rule means (I still don't get it.) But I'll gladly keep them up way past bedtime attempting to explain gravity, orbits, and rocket power.

"Dad, what happens if the rockets run out of flaming stuff before they get to space?"

"What happens if you walk to the edge of the earth? Do you fall off?"

"How do you hang on if you walk to the bottom of the earth?"

"What happens if the rocket explodes?"

"If you took your helmet off in space, would you die?"

"What are these big mountains from Alaska to Arizona?"

"Look, my toes are making an eclipse!"

"Dad, what kinds of stars do you know about?"

"Is Pluto the coldest planet?"

"Is God bigger than a red giant star?"


And then the conversation took an unexpected turn...

"Would you burn up if you flew into the sun?"

Yup. You would light up in flames. But you couldn't get to the sun, because it would take too long to get there.

"What do you mean?"

Well, light takes 8 minutes, and it goes way faster than you could. So it would probably take, ohhhh... six lifetimes to get to the sun.

"Six lifetimes? What do you mean?"

Well, you would have to get on a spaceship and start toward the sun. Then you would have to grow up and have babies, and then they would grow up and have babies, until six babies later they would get to the sun.

Slight pause while they consider this. Followed by nervous giggles from Noah in the top bunk, who exclaims...

"They would all have to be girl babies, cause only girls can have babies! He he he he!"

Well, actually, it takes boys and girls to make... (Dad just kind of trails off here.)

All three of them, now giggling full bore...

"It takes BOYS to make babies!?!?!?!?"

Uhhhhhh, yup. So, any more questions about the sun?!?!?

Luckily their amusement was short lived, and they were quickly back to asking about the multitude of ways they could find to die due to physics.

"What if the sun burned out? What if we lived on Pluto? What if your spaceship got stuck halfway between the moon and earth?"

Dad dodged a nearly premature conversation on that one. Although knowing our kids, they will let that one rattle around for several days or weeks, and out of nowhere will come a "Dad said it takes boys to make babies. Is that right?"

Hopefully they ask their mother. Who was at the store when all this was occurring. And returned, around 9:00 or so, to find the kids still going at it in their room...

And I quote... "I hold you fully responsible for filling their minds with space travel and reproduction before bed. That could keep a little boy occupied for days!"

They didn't stop until we put them all in separate rooms to fall asleep.