Space, the final frontier. The womb, the first frontier. Somewhere between those two, the ocean. Welcome to Night Vale

I’m excited today for the annual Night Vale Children’s Fun Fact Science Presentation. Yes, that’s right, as we’ve done every year on this day, we will be devoting our entire episode to a scientific narrative that is sure to delight both the young and the young at heart and also those who have stolen young hearts and incorporated them into your flesh sacks.

For this year’s Children’s Fun Fact Science Presentation, we will be looking into the history of the space race. My husband Carlos has been helping me research this, (thanks honey!) and so it should be airtight and without error.

Now, the Space Race truly began in 1782, at a garden party hosted by the first Duke of Luftnarp one lazy July weekend. A group of bored noblepeople were sitting out in the garden, in all their ruffles and wigs, looking absolutely fashionable for the time and absolutely ridiculous to modern eyes. Soon the conversation turned, as it often does at parties, to how much they all hated the moon.

“Stupid moon,” said one.

“Lousy orb,” added another.

“Why, I loathe that sky rock,” said a third.

Then they started to throw things at the moon, to demonstrate how much they hated it. But none of the objects they threw, not the champagne glasses nor the decorative party masks nor the dangerous knives, came anywhere near the moon. Most of the hurled items followed the tedious arc of gravity back into the party, with mixed results for the attendees, some of whom required immediate medical attention.

“This won’t do,” said the first Duke of Luftnarp. “We must hit the moon square on with our objects of derision.”

“Let us endeavor,” said the Prince of York, “to build an object that can make it all the way to the moon and smack that awful rock right across its ugly surface. The first one to do so will show that indeed they hate the moon the most.”

There was general cheering to that remark, along with some moaning from those who had been struck by the falling objects.

And thus the space race was born.

And now the news. As I’m sure we’ve all been following, there is a presidential race going on. Yes, Night Vale may be a small town mostly preoccupied with the banal goings on of our day to day life, but we are not unaware of national stories. Just like any other town, we have our own opinions on the presidential race, and spirited debates are held weekly in the Compressed Spine Amateur Boxing Gym. Winner is generally by knock out, although occasionally a winner has to be chosen by points. I myself am a strong supporter of Spotless Tony, who I think has the best positions, including banning guns, legalizing writing utensils, and Medicare for Spotless Tony, a program that would provide comprehensive healthcare to himself. Others may support Heartbreak Maggie, and I do see the arguments for her. She has the most number of arms, the most number of eyes, and her singing voice literally kills. In any case, I think we can all get together on one thing. Old Towel Leonard has got to go. Get him out there. Ugh, Old Towel Leonard.

This has been the news.

And now traffic,

Lift your eyes, pilgrims. See above you, another world awaits. This world has grown tired. This world has grown restless. This world has less color and more dust. Lift your eyes, pilgrims. See above you, another world awaits.

Get to that other world by any means, pilgrims. For what are pilgrims without their pilgrimage? What is anyone without a destination? You must lift yourself up to that other place.

Gather your supplies, pilgrims. Strip this world bare in order to raise yourself up. Take every scrap around you and put it toward that other world. This is all that matters. It’s all that matters to you, and so it is all that matters.

Aloft, pilgrims. You have done it. From here, the sweep of the universe presents itself.

Cast down your eyes, pilgrims. See below you the world you left behind. The world you stripped bare to make this journey. There was found all the conditions of life. Up here is only a cold, lonely hollow. Why did you ever feel you needed to leave? But ah well, ah well. For what are pilgrims without their pilgrimage?

This has been traffic.

Let us now continue with our Children’s Fun Fact Science Presentation: the history of the Space Race.

The Space Race went on through the 18th and 19th centuries, with the rich and poor alike trying to be the first to successfully throw something at that horrible moon. The most obvious methods were quickly tried and discarded. Catapults only managed to cause collateral damage to neighboring homes. Gunpowder only backfired on the scientists involved, often quite literally. One woman, the Archduchess of the Motley Meadows, believed that she could reach the moon through dreaming. Every night, she performed a series of meditations that allowed her to have lucid control of her dreams. In those dreams, she would fly upward, each time getting a little closer to the dumb old moon. It was her belief that when she reached the moon in her dream, she would attain the same goal in real life. But the moment she finally touched the moon in her dream, she awoke to find herself in the stifling darkness of a coffin. It seems she had died several decades before, but still she dreamed. Having ascertained that there was no way back from the grave, she performed the meditations and fell into one final, endless lucid dream.

And that basically sums up the space race up until 1953.

Now for a word from our sponsors.

Today’s show is brought to you by Borders Books and Music.

Remember the old days? When your legs were shorter but your life stretched longer? When the shadows were less dark and the lights less bleary? When the internet was a secret club and not a poison chalice? When energy was a bottomless thing, not a quickly siphoned tank?

We are what once was. Look on our works (both books and music), ye mighty, and peruse.

Borders Books and Music. What you are now we used to be; what we are now you will be.

This has been a word from our sponsors.

The lawsuit in the case of the estate of Franklin Chen vs the City of Night Vale continues apace.

The suit is currently in the discovery phase, which has been made difficult by the fact that the apparent murderer of Franklin Chen, Hiram McDaniels, has not been seen in Night Vale for years. Not since…the incident. And all records in Night Vale are top secret, so every time the lawyers for the Chen family try to see one, they have to dodge the laser grid and tranq darts that surround every filing cabinet in City Hall. Those lawyers have filed an injunction against the city to try to force them to turn the laser grids off, but as the official Night Vale motto, written by the town founders hundreds of years ago, clearly states: “Laser Grids or Death.”

More news on this lawsuit as news is made by this lawsuit.

Back to the space race!

Affairs continued with little success until 1953, when the United States, descendants of the Prince of York, decided that enough was enough and established the North American Slap-the-Moon Agency, or NASA, dedicated to developing the skills and technology needed to give that horrible orbiter what-for. Meanwhile the Russians, descendants of the Duke of Luftnarp, started their own agency designed to kick the moon in the you-know-what. And so a bet between two bored aristocrats became a global race, as they both tried to be the first to aim missiles at that sad little planetoid. To represent us, we chose Neil Armstrong. He was a test pilot, and he reportedly hated the moon more than anyone. Above his bed, he kept a National Geographic picture of the moon (the caption: “Can this celestial trash ever be put in its place?”) which he had drawn a huge red X through. Below that he wrote: “Darn you moon.” Which was the strongest language that existed in the 1950s.

Finally all was prepared. Neil Armstrong and his fellow astronauts boarded the rocket. All was quiet. Then all was loud.

More soon, but now for this week’s word jumble. The following nonsense words will, when their letters are rearranged, produce a simple phrase we all know well. Here we go:

“Before I went into the cave, the prospect of the cave became so monstrous in my head that I dreamed about it for weeks. In my dreams, I was just outside of the cave, and I knew that the moment I stepped into the cave, my life would be over. But I also knew I could not delay my journey into the cave. I shook and shook with fear, and in my shaking, awoke myself. This happened night after night. Then came the day of our expedition, and to my horror, as I stood outside of the cave, the same dread certainty came to me. As soon as I stepped one foot into the crevice before me, my life would be over. I shook and shook, but I did not awaken, for I was not asleep but in the terrible dream we call life.”

So there it is. Just take those nonsense words apart and rearrange them into the phrase we’re looking for. If you think you have the answer, you probably do. Great job!

Before we go, the answer to last week’s jumble was: Hop! The Window Shakes Slyly! Look Here!

Which is, of course, the title of Dave Eggers’s new book of essays about blockchains.

This has been this week’s word jumble.

We near the end of our story on the Space Race. Neil Armstrong and his comrades hunched in this tiny capsule that, absurdity of all absurdities, was about to be launched through void to lifeless rock. Sweat on his nose. Sweat on his lips. Then sweat in his mouth. This was all unnecessary. The history of humanity did not require us to physically touch everything there is. But some drive made him willing to risk his life, the only life he would ever get, in order to go far away and then come back again. There was a sound. There was a fire. There was a pressure. And then there was an absence of pressure. And they were at the moon. The lander careened its way to the surface. Neil, sweat still on his face, placed one foot on the moon. “I have a small foot,” he said. “But humanity, metaphorically, has big feet. Big huge metaphoric feet.” History would record and repeat these poetic words.

Neil looked about him. He had done it. He had been the first one to smack into this disgusting space rock. All around was gray, and above that black, and within that, unnervingly distant, blue and green. And then…Neil saw.

What Neil saw in a moment. But we really should and we really must go to the weather.

[WEATHER: “Have a Smoke” by Head Portals]

Neil’s breath made shapes on the inside of his helmet. Some part of him felt that it was not even him on the moon, but that he was merely watching someone else’s body through a little window. That other him stepped forward, and saw something truly odd. It was a house. Solidly built, two floors, a front door, and gable windows. As he looked at it in disbelief, he realized that it was one of many. An entire town, all cleverly camouflaged from above with gray and black mesh, so that it would appear through telescopes to be merely the awful boring surface of the awful boring moon. He was not the first one on the moon after all. Who had come before?

He walked through the town, though it appeared abandoned. He stood in the middle of the main square. And he said, though he would not be able to be heard through the helmet and the thin atmosphere, “hello?”

In every window appeared an animal. Dogs, cats, snakes, hamsters, and parrots. So many animals, all watching him silently, regarding him from the windows of their little town. One cat, gray as the moon itself, hopped from her ledge and came over to him.

“I am Barbara Emmaline Quendaline Sauce,” said the cat, “but you may call me Barb E.Q. Sauce.”

Neil said, “you can talk?” and then he said “well apparently you can. I don’t know why I asked.”

The cat continued, as though he had not spoken. “This is our city. We are the lost pets of your world. We are lost because that is what we chose to be. We came here so we could be lost forever. Tell no one.”

Neil didn’t know what to say. All of his training had been about zero g maneuvering and the best way to hit the stupid moon when he got there. Nothing about how to interact with a cat that wanted him to keep a secret.

“Please,” the cat repeated. And Neil nodded.

Not knowing what else to do, he went back to the lander, climbed in, and looked at the other man who had made this journey with him. Lee Marvin looked back at him with gentle eyes.

“Lee,” Neil said, “you’re not going to believe this.”

“A secret lost pet city on the moon,” Lee said.

“Well,” Neil said, “uh, yes.”

Lee nodded thoughtfully. “Better leave them to it then,” he said. “Probably better we keep this between us.” Lee did not look surprised. It seemed to Neil that maybe Lee was there precisely to ensure that this secret was kept. And so again Neil only nodded, and they made their preparations and left.

As they launched, out of the tiny window, Neil could just barely see thousands of animal eyes looking up at him. “I’ll keep your secret,” he whispered. “I’ll keep your secret.”

And he did. He never told anyone. Neither did Lee. No one knows this story. No one has ever heard it.

This has been the Children’s Fun Fact Science Presentation.

Good night, Night Vale. Good night.