nobody is on the receiving end. The same goes for the Moon, for Venus, and as far as we can tell for everywhere in the solar system except this pale blue dot. Why? Because space is terrible. All of it. Terrible. Even photos and videos taken on the actual surfaces of the Moon and Mars can be deceiving. They don’t look half bad—sort of like dusty deserts with rolling hills. Not exactly bearnicorns and man-bats in Happy Valley, but not entirely uninviting either. To see these images properly, you need to know what they can’t show you. The Moon isn’t just a sort of gray Sahara without air. Its
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