The Sky is falling!

I won't even tell you how old I was when Skylab fell to earth, but I was just barely old enough to be scared. But I was. And by scared I really, truly paralyzed by terror. My mother attempted to explain to my young mind things like trajectory and how it would burn up upon reentering our atmosphere and would land in the ocean off of Florida but all I heard was blah blah blah, something that looked like a gigantic windmill to me was going to fall on us. Specifically me. And I was terrified. I took to hanging out under the dining room table and trying to sleep underneath my bed (only in little kid logic can a dining room table provide that extra little bit of protection to keep you safe). I'm sure my mother had no idea how to deal with such a small child who had so much terror over something that was really not a threat. Looking back I'm certain it was fall out from all the fear and anxiety of my fathers death. Even little ones pick that stuff up.

Well, Skylab did fall and not a single bit of it came to land on our little house in Boulder Colorado. I escaped! Lying in bed last night after listening to all the hooplah over Nasa 'bombing' the moon I had one tiny irrational childhood flashback. A friend had posted something on Facebook : "they know if the moon explodes we spin out of orbit and we all die, right?"

Uh...I knew that's not at all what would happen. But for one minute my little panicky self thought...maybe the baby and I will sleep under the dining room table tonight.

I think NASA needs to show that they are a vital agency still, and I firmly believe that they are. But at the moment I can't help but think: really? A 79 million dollar rocket just to crash it? How about 79 mil for water treatment plants here? Or 79 million extra for our schools? (I know that's a drop in the bucket, sadly) Some schools are having children bring their own toilet paper because they can't afford it.
Seriously.
In America.
If we are the greatest country ever then our children should be able to go to school safe in the knowlege that there will be toilet paper. Seems pretty low on the list of things we can provide our kids.

The moon didn't explode, but the childhood romantic in me, the one who looked for the man in the moon every night feels sad for her.
Poor moon. Sorry we injured you today. Thank you for letting us do some reasearch. Even if I personally feel we should have left you alone right now and used that money for something else.


*please don't school me on how appropriations works. I know. I'm just
sayin...