So back in the 1960s, the decision makers at NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) looked at the top candidates, all of whom were the best on the planet to guide the lander to a safe place and make that first step, and found themselves stumped.
There was no one out of the 29 candidates who singularly possessed any particular skill set that the others couldn’t equally match with their own excellent skill set.
Finally Flight Director GENE KRANZ said, “I dunno. You want to draw straws?”
ROCKET SCIENTIST: “Please! We’re men of science.”
CRYPTOGRAPHER: “How about Cryptography on their names? You never know what you might come up with?”
NASA Administrator THOMAS O. PAINE: “Right. Why not numerology?”
CRYPTOGRAPHER: “Hey now!”
LINGUISTICS (holds pencil thoughtfully): “How about Semordnilap?”
ALL: “A what?”
LINGUISTICS: “Semordnilap.” (writes in the air) “You reverse a word or words to make new words. You want to try it on their names?”
ROCKET SCIENTIST: “Real clever. Linguistics! Why are you even part of this? Do we have a mission critical crossword puzzle to be – ”
WERNHER VON BRAUN: “I’d like to hear more about this, actually.”
LINGUISTICS (proudly): “Semordnilap has always been a part of secret coding.”
CRYPTOGRAPHER: “Well that’s true.”
LINGUISTICS (prouder-ly): “Semordnilap itself is a reverse of the word ‘palindromes’. You can intentionally hide entire sentences or coded words within another word. But often you find words already exist in a sentence, and sometimes even make sense, in the reverse of a sentence or a group of words, like a name.”
WERNHER VON BRAUN: “As someone whose country was significantly defeated by cryptographers, I’d like to try this.”
Cryptographer and Linguistics beam with pride at each other.
ROCKET SCIENTIST (sotto voce): “Don’t puff up. You were just flattered by a NAZI.”
GENE KRANZ: “Hey, watch it, you!”
ROCKET SCIENTIST: “Sorry.”
WERNHER VON BRAUN: “I’m used to it.”
THOMAS O. PAINE: “Well ol Edwin Eugene Buzz Aldrin has to be one of them.”
LINGUISTICS: “What? Why?”
THOMAS O. PAINE: “His Mother’s maiden name was Marion *Moon*.”
LINGUISTICS: “No way!”
ROCKET SCIENTIST: “You of all people didn’t know?”
LINGUISTICS: (challenging glare) “You really want to mix it up, don’t you? Well I’m game!”
GENE KRANZ: “Ahem ! And with a nickname like Buzz?”
THOMAS O. PAINE: “Well that’s just too much cool not to have him there. But don’t ever let him know I said that. Okay, let’s try this Snerdlap and -”
LINGUISTICS: “Semordnilap.”
THOMAS O. PAINE: “Right, and see if we can find the other guy.”
CRYPTOGRAPHER: “I’m working through this already. Check it out. ‘Gnorts Mr. Alien’.”
WERNHER VON BRAUN: “Vas?”
CRYPTOGRAPHER: “Neil Armstrong, spelled backwards.”
WERNHER VON BRAUN: “Mr. Alien… Ha! Vunderbar! I like that.”
GENE KRANZ: “Me too. The first two earth men on the Moon are Buzz Moon and Mr. Alien. That’s great!”
LINGUISTICS: “But what’s Gnorts?”
ROCKET SCIENTIST: “Your Mother.”
LINGUISTICS (slams pencil): “THAT’S IT! IT’S GO TIME!”
THE END
Welcome to
PERPETUAL BULLET: A Science Fiction Collection?
It’s a veritable trove of previously published Science Fiction Horror Thriller tales – plus bonus stories
Featuring: Weird Sex, True Love, Monsters and Mayhem!
Now on sale for $9.00 in Trade Paperback and in eBook for $1.99 and available for your Android Tablet, iPad, Kindle, Nook, and every other “E”!
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Buy the paperback at Amazon and the Kindle eBook is free!
Want more?
Buy WILLOW BLUE. It’s my second collection of critically acclaimed Supernatural and Drama Thriller short stories with all of the Weird Sex, True Love, Monsters and Mayhem, you’ve come to expect (or should by now). Available in paperback for $8.00 or in Kindle for only $1.99. Buy the paperback at Amazon and the Kindle eBook is free! The tales will last you longer than latte!
Is Your Hunger Insatiable?
Look for my story Cedo Looked Like People, in the anthology, FEAR THE REAPER, edited by Joe Mynhardt. Available from Crystal Lake Publishing and available in Print for $12.99 or eBook for $2.99.
Exploit These Resources!
Also available from Crystal Lake Publishing, the film making guidebook, HORROR 201: The Silver Scream. Reap the rewards of movie making experience from the likes of Myself, as well as John Carpenter, Tom Holland, Jeffrey Reddick, George A. Romero, Keith Arem, Richard Gray, also the late Ray Bradbury, Wes Craven, plus many more. $19.99 in Print or $3.99 in eBook.
Earth is approx. 98 million miles from the sun. 98 Million Freaking Miles. If you could launch from the surface of the sun and were traveling as fast as the International Space Station, 5 miles a second or 17,150 miles an hour, it would take you the better part of a year, a little over 238 days or approximately 7 months, to reach the earth. That 98 million miles from Sol puts us around 30,760,000 miles from Venus and 43,100,000 miles from –
Mars, at nearly half the size of earth, is 141,100,00 miles from the sun. We’re closer to Mars than our own sun.
Jupiter at 483 million miles from Sol, and 
Saturn, Jupiter’s closest Jovian neighbor, is slightly more than half the size of Jupiter (
Next is Uranus, which is 1.784 billion miles from Sol, making it farther from Saturn (
Finally there is Neptune, which is 2.795 billion miles from the sun. Making Neptune farther from it’s closest Jovian neighbor, Uranus, than Uranus is from Saturn which, again, is closer to the sun than it is to Uranus.
