You can look up at the moon and see the theme parks anytime the moon is full, these days. Everyone says it looks lopsided when the waning begins and the bubble disappears, but watching it wax open is like watching a strange, stony flower bloom now.
It doesn’t even cost that much to go, thanks to the railgun launches. But it all boiled down to one man’s belief in imagination.
Yeah, I see you know who I mean. So you know the investment he made into getting there, and making sure everyone else could get there too. He thought big, that man.
Good man. Met him once. I was just a kid, but he asked me what I thought on one of the terrestrial rides. Nodded, took me seriously, listened to my suggestions. Even shook my hand. Great man.
Boy, it’s a good thing he lived until the eighties, especially after that health scare he had in the mid-sixties. Experimental treatments saved the day, no kidding there. We nearly lost him, though of course we didn’t know it at the time.
Kept the space program open, he did, after the public lost interest. You think space tourism is good now, well, there’s no way it would have existed without him.
They had a tough time those first few years, too. Gravity works differently, or something. Cost complaints and whatnot. All the math for the coasters had to be redone. I hear the engineers were bouncing around in the first big bubble, pulling their hair out. I bet it was hilarious.
But you can’t have someone go in for a loop-de-loop and wind up launched past the life support. It’s funny, you’d think being launched into space would be enough of a thrill, but everybody wants to do something when they get there.
So yeah. We owe the guy. Big hero. He’s the reason we’ve got a colony program in the works. They’re naming the ship after him, I heard.
Aw, I know I said it was the investment, but it’s never just the money. He kept the dream alive, you know?
Who else coulda done that, eh? You give me one good name.
So what if the moon looks like it has big round ears now?
You want to go to space or not, kid?
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“Theme parks on the moon” was my submission for this week’s More Odds Than Ends writing prompt weekly challenge. When I have the time, I’ll take a hack at my own. I’m really curious how they’ll turn out from other people!
I’m torn between DD Harriman and Uncle Walt.
Harriman, according to the Future History timeline, fits the time period but I can’t quite see the mouse like image. Uncle Walt fits the description, and the ears, but he died in the 60’s.
Hi – thanks for commenting! Made my day.
Yes, Walt Disney – although I panicked over the fear of Disney suing halfway through.
I was lucky enough to be down in Orlando recently, and kept thinking about what would have happened had he lived longer.