A couple weeks ago I rambled on about the Moon and how it’s been, like, 52 years since a human person walked on the lunar surface and got dusty grey regolith all over his boots - and what a shame that is. Not because of the regolith on his boots, but because it was a very dumb idea to abandon the Moon just when all Personkind were (literally) just starting to make bounding, low-gravity strides toward deep space exploration. But at least “regolith” is an excellent word I’d never heard before they started talking about Moon dust, although it is quite difficult to work it into a conversation.
You may recall that the Japanese Moon machine called SLIM recently successfully landed on the Moon and then promptly tipped over onto its nose. It was a marvelous and encouraging step in Earth’s incredibly challenging bid to return to the Moon, albeit a fairly embarrassing sight, sitting there upside down on the powdery regolith.
Well guess what. Less than two weeks ago another Earth rocket machine landed on the Moon too. This one came from the U.S. of Eh? It’s called Odysseus and thank goodness it isn’t sitting on its nose like SLIM. Okay, admittedly, it tipped over too, on account it stubbed its toe (well, one of its six legs) while landing on a bunch of regolith and ended up lying on its side. But at least “Ody” brought a cool cargo to our only natural satellite.
It’s no secret I love dogs. I even wrote a book about a talking dog and it would be shameless free publicity if I mentioned it was called “Harold Is A Dog” and it’s available on Amazon, so I won’t. But I also really like Balloon Dogs. In fact I have a collection consisting of eight Balloon Dogs of different colors and sizes which are sitting on my shelf in my office right now, looking at me happily. And I don’t mean dogs made out of balloons.
Balloon Dogs are sculptures created by a controversial New York artist named Jeff Koons. His huge animal statues are three meters tall and made out of a unique process of highly polished stainless steel or porcelain, each with a flawless mirror-like finish glowing with a translucent single color that seems to be lit somehow with voodoo electricity. The Dogs I have aren’t quite that epic, however. Each one of mine is plastic, fits in my hand and cost less than ten dollars each. Mr. Koons’ original ”Balloon Dog Orange” was a wee tad more pricey. It was sold in auction in 2013 for a mere $58.4 million to become the most expensive work by a living artist at an auction at the time.
And now Koons has notched another first. The first “authorized artwork on the Moon”. You see, the Ody lander contained 125 Jeff Koons mini moon sculptures in a small glass cube. It’s called “Moon Phases” and each little Moon ball shows a different lunar phase and is inscribed with a name of an influential Earth person.
I’m not entirely sure what will be done with the 125 Moon balls up there. Are they going to be left in the cube and displayed near an attractive mound of regolith? Piled in pyramids for slow motion games of Bocce Ball by future Moon walkers? Brought back and sold for $53.4 million each?
Whatever the plan is for the sculpture on the Moon, I like it. It’s better than, say, the first nuclear weapon launcher landing on the Moon. But I don’t think I have room on my shelf for 125 tiny little Moon replicas. I’ll stick with Balloon Dogs. I’m still looking for an orange one.
Harley Hay is a Red Deer author and filmmaker. Reach out to Harley with any thoughts or ideas at harleyhay99@gmail.com.