Pricks in Space!

On the 85th anniversary of Andy Warhol's birth, here's the most curious story I've ever read about him. There is, allegedly, a secret art show installed on a hatch on a leg of the Apollo 12 landing module Intrepid. And one of the artworks on display is Andy Warhol's cock.

Artist Forrest ‘Frosty’ Myers tried to arrange for a ‘Moon Museum’ - a small collection of artworks - to be taken to the Moon on Apollo 12 but NASA rejected the idea. He therefore enlisted the help of an unnamed engineer at the Grumman Corporation and did it as guerrilla art.

Work by Robert Rauschenberg (a wavy line), Andy Warhol (stylised initials), John Chamberlain (a geometric pattern), Claes Oldenburg (a mouse), David Novros (a square) and Myers (a computer generated shape) were miniaturized and baked onto an iridium-plated ceramic wafer measuring just 3/4" x 1/2" x 1/40", with the assistance of engineer Fred Waldhauer at Bell Labs.

Waldhauer knew an engineer at Grumman - only ever identified as John F - who agreed to attach it to Intrepid. Consequently, it was taken to the Moon where it remains to this day. It was only later that NASA discovered what had happened, and that the supposedly ‘stylised initials’ drawn by Andy Warhol were, in fact, a drawing of a penis. At least 16 Moon Museums were created, making it one of rarest of 1960s multiples. Here's a better image of the postage stamp-sized 'Museum' where you can see the details more closely:

So, is the story true? NASA has never confirmed it. But, in 2010, the US PBS TV network did a documentary about the alleged lunar artwork and tracked down Apollo 12’s launch pad foreman, Richard Kupczyk, who confirmed that it is indeed on the lander - along with plenty of other smuggled items. 'Apollo was something bigger than life, and we were all part of it,' he said. 'We wanted to leave a mark.' And Frosty Myers is happy to show people a telegram dated 12th November 1969 from 'John F' stating: 'YOUR ON' A.O.K. ALL SYSTEMS GO'.

And the event was reported at the time. Two days after Apollo 12 left the moon (and two days before they splashed down) Myers broke the story to The New York Times which ran the article accompanied by a photograph of one of the 'Museums' - with a strategically placed thumb over Warhol's contribution.

If it was a hoax, it has lasted remarkably well and no one has ever managed to successfully debunk the story. I guess we'll only truly know the truth when we return to the Moon and someone goes and checks. But I hope it's true. I really hope it's true.

One small cock for a man, one cheeky act for Mankind.

A century of words for the man of the century

You may have heard the story about philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal who, when penning a letter to some Reverend Fathers, wrote: 'I'm sorry this is such a long letter; I didn't have time to write a short one'.

It's a quote that turns up frequently and often ascribed to others, including Winston Churchill, Cicero, Mark Twain, Voltaire, Albert Einstein, Marcel Proust and Oscar Wilde. However, it was Pascal who made the comment in his Lettres Provinciales (1656-1657), no. 16. He actually wrote: 'Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue parceque je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte' ('I have made this letter longer than usual, because I lack the time to make it short'). What he was saying, of course, is that it's easy to ramble on; it takes effort to be succinct.

The reason I mention it is that yesterday evening I was invited to write 100 words on Neil Armstrong for today's edition of the London Evening Standard newspaper. One hundred words. It sounds a lot but it really isn't. How could I encapsulate what I feel about Armstrong and his achievements in so few words? It took me an hour of editing, culling and re-writing to arrive at something that summed up what Armstrong meant to me ... with a little bit of humour added in (I can never write anything that's 100% serious).

So here they are; my 100 words for Neil Armstrong. Sorry it took so long to explain; I didn't have time to write a short explanation.

_______________________________________________________________

Imagine this job description: ‘You will be required to sit on top of 3000 tons of explosives and steel and be blasted across 250,000 miles of freezing vacuum to the Moon. You will plant a flag, grab some rocks, and fly home. You will receive standard US Navy pay for the duration of the trip. The computer that will help you calculate the journey has less processing power than a musical birthday card.’ Would you take the job? Neil Armstrong did. And he did it solely to expand the frontiers of human knowledge. That’s why he should never be forgotten.

(100 words)

Prog Rock(ets)

Astronaut Cady Coleman and Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson perform the first ever Earth/space duet.



Inspirational!