1436: Orb Hammer
| Orb Hammer |
 Title text: Ok, but make sure to get lots of pieces of rock, because later we'll decide to stay in a room on our regular orb and watch hammers hold themselves and hit rocks for us, and they won't bring us very many rocks. |
Explanation
Cueball suggests doing something that sounds absurd and not useful at all for the daily activities of a regular human. Yet it refers in unexpected English words to the Apollo human spaceflight program which, among other things, sent people to the Moon to bring moon rock samples back to Earth to study them (i.e. hitting the glowing orb in the night sky with a hammer until little pieces break off). Although you might think that moon rocks would be prized as unique scientific samples, in actual fact many of them were stolen or simply lost. Many were given as gifts to politicians from US states and foreign countries, who then kept them, sold them or had them stolen - two-thirds of these moon rocks are missing and presumably locked up in a cupboard, display cabinet or warehouse somewhere. The rest are kept in museums or laboratory store rooms, where they usually stay untouched except for the occasional removal of samples.
The use of such language contributes to the effect of the suggestion sounding absurd. Of course, numerous results of the Apollo program have in fact had many benefits for regular people.
No person has been on the Moon since the final Apollo mission, Apollo 17, in 1972. Occasional lunar rocks can still be collected on Earth. They are formed when a celestial body impacts the Moon's surface, forming a crater and launching small rocks into the space. Some of them will eventually reach Earth, see lunar meteorites.
The title text refers to various robotic missions, including the current Mars missions (Pathfinder, Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity) as well as to the Philae lander component of the Rosetta mission (with details of its intended landing site confirmed a mere handful of days before the comic).
With robots, instead of traveling to Mars ourselves, we stay on Earth ("our regular orb") and program and direct rovers to operate remotely. Hence the rovers are described as hammers that hold themselves. The rovers collect geological samples and analyze them on site, but have no way to send the samples back to Earth. This is why the title text ask to make sure to get lots of pieces of rock because it seems we will not go that far in to space today or any time soon.
The idea of using simple language in highly technical fields began with 547: Simple and was revisited in 722: Computer Problems, 1133: Up Goer Five, and 1322: Winter. It should be noted however, that in this case Randall didn't use the 1000 most basic words in the English language, because the Simple English Wikipedia's List of 1000 basic words does not contain the words "glowing" or "orb," but does contain "moon," "earth," "bright," and "ball."
The idea of using unexpected language to create humor highlighting the absurdity of normal activities has previously been explored with 203: Hallucinations.
Transcript
- [Cueball talks to another Cueball-like guy:]
- Cueball: You know that glowing orb in the night sky?
- Guy: Yeah?
- Cueball: Let's go hit it with a hammer until little pieces break off, then bring the pieces back and lock them in a closet.
- Guy: Sounds good!
- [Caption below the frame:]
- The Apollo program was weird.
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refresh comments!Discussion
Although the alluded-to Mars Rover missions are on-going (most particularly Curiosity, and the long-running Opportunity), could the most immediate reference instead be Rosetta's Philae Lander, scheduled to land on its destination well within a month from the date of comic publication? (Although technically it's a drill, not a hammer, And it's not a sample return mission at all, unlike the likes prior Stardust/Hayabusa missions, or conversly the ultimate "hitting it with hammer"/non-return nature of Deep Impact.) 141.101.98.247 14:52, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
- (Also, "testing for life", at least directly, has only been a specific aim of certain Mars sampling missions. But perhaps that's enough (possibly misplaced) pedantry. Just don't personally know specifically how to improve the current write-up.) 141.101.98.247 15:11, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
203: Hallucinations doesn't exactly use "simple" language. 199.27.128.207 23:31, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
- Comparing with the word list
I compared all the text with the cited word list list, to see what was missing:
- glowing orb
- neither word found, though one could write "heavenly ball", or, as noted, earth or moon (or sun).
- yeah
- not listed, nor is "yes" (odd). Perhaps "agree"?
- let's
- "let" is listed (as in allow), but the contracted word is "us, which is not listed.
- them
- not listed, though all the singular variants (him/her/it) are.
- closet
- maybe "cupboard" or "small room" or "little room"?
- apollo program
- formal names don't need to be listed
- weird
- maybe "really strange"
I'm guessing Randal wasn't targeting the word list explicitly. Divad27182 (talk) 16:34, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
The simple language/technical field idea is also touched on in 444: Macgyver Gets Lazy Quetzalcoatl (talk) 15:31, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
There is a community portal discussion of what to call Cueball and what to do in case with more than one Cueball. I have added this comic to the new Category:Multiple Cueballs. Since there is really only one Cueball that "talks" it may be OK to keep him listed as Cueball. Just made a note that the other guy also looks like Cueball. --Kynde (talk) 15:03, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
Sorry if this is the wrong procedure, but I've never edited anything beyond fixing grammatical mistakes. I've edited the page to get rid of the "double Cueball problem". Why don't we just leave it at this for this page and mark it as "completed". 108.162.216.89 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
- That's fine (with me) for this page, but we'd appreciate input here. Djbrasier (talk) 01:36, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
- I disagree. There is no reason to suggesdt that these guys who get this idea was from Nasa. This comic just describes the Apollo program with unexpected words. The transcript should describe not assume. Have deleted nasa reference and reinstated Cuecall-like guy.--Kynde (talk) 19:47, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
Surely humour was correct? --141.101.98.248 10:48, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
- I agree. Rule #1 is "Don't be a jerk.", and discriminating against valid spelling on the basic of national origin certainly seems like "being a jerk" to me. -452 (talk) 14:45, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
