Seven Seas and Nine Planets

OK, I admit it. I am in the camp of “Pluto is a planet, dammit.” If you call a dog’s tail a leg, it still slobbers–or however the quote attributed to Lincoln really went. There is a Pluto probe halfway there. I suspect that if they had reclassified Pluto before the probe was sent, it would never have gone. Too late to call it back and thank all the stars in the heavens for that because Pluto might have an ocean or two.

Europa, Titan, Pluto. The list is growing. Eat your heart out Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus. Cause of plutonic oceans might be radioactive elements at the core. Or global warming from all the Plutonians driving their SUVs.

The West was settled after considerable exploration–they knew Jefferson had purchased a lot of interesting land but Lewis & Clarke, Fremont and even the mountain men like Hugh Glass mapped and charted and discovered. They had to go there. And their boosters like Jessie Fremont turned the adventure and discovery into something the people could understand and become enthused about. We have to go to Europa and Titan and Pluto to find out. Flybys are good but actually sending those autonomous critters with opposable thumbs and a 3-lb gray squishy nonlinear computer in their heads capable of creativity will get us real knowledge.

It’s Boxing Day (whatever that means to you) so send me a box of planetary rocks from Pluto for a gift. I’ll even be satisfied to look at them through a leaded glass window if they are radioactive. I have, after all, fondled a moon rock. Unless NASA lied to me, of course, but that Capricorn 1 thing is a bit overdone.

If you want a lot of fiction, 9 novels and a passel of short stories and samples of other novels, for your new e-reader, you won’t go wrong with my e-Booknanza. Help me actually stay around long enough to see those plutonic rocks!

Pluto and its Moons: Charon, Nix, and Hydra

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