Pub trivia: Moon
Moon
It's our closest neighbour, our nightlight, and a source of fascination for millenia. We also spent quite a lot of money sending some lucky astronauts up there to collect rocks. Money well spent.
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Fact
You know the name of the first person on the Moon, but who was the last? The dubious honour goes to Gene Cernan, who left the lunar surface on December 14 1972. His final words before their module lifted off were: "Okay, Jack. Let's get this mother outta here."
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Fact
Humans are set to return to the Moon in the newly-commissioned Orion spacecraft – described by one Nasa spokesman as "Apollo on steroids". Don't hold your breath, though – the mission has been pencilled in for 2019.
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Fact
We can only ever see one side of the moon because it has "synchronous rotation". This means that it takes as long to rotate on its axis as it does to make one orbit around the Earth, which is why the same side is always pointed our way. Think about it!
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Fact
There may be quite a few American flags planted on its surface, but the Moon can never be claimed as any one nation's property. This is thanks to the Outer Space Treaty, which sounds like something out of Star Trek but is an actual agreement between more than 100 countries that preserves the Moon as a neutral territory for all mankind.
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Fact
The Moon isn't round, but egg-shaped. You can't tell from looking at it because the pointy end faces the Earth.
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Fact
The only person to have been laid to rest on the Moon is Dr Eugene Shoemaker, a top scientist who had been prevented from becoming an astronaut due to a medical condition. But in death he achieved his dream – his ashes were carried to the Moon by a space probe in 1999.
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Fact
America gets all the credit for lunar exploration, but it was actually Russia that got to the lunar surface first. The Soviet Luna 2 landed on the Moon in 1959 – a whole decade before Neil Armstrong did the same.
Danny Wallace interview
His book Yes Man has been turned into a Hollywood film, so we caught up with Scottish-born comic Danny Wallace for all the glitzy goss.
Top 10 Bond gadgets
In Dr No he had a Geiger counter, but thankfully the gadgets got a bit better after that. We look back at 10 of Bond's best.
