2 hours ago
8
Space scientist and CEO of Science Innovation Ltd
The item I would take with me to the moon would be a little alien that my daughter made for me. She is studying textiles for GCSE and she used a loom to make a beautiful piece of purple cloth, my favourite colour. She then sewed this into a little alien creature. I would love to take this with me because the moon would be the furthest the creature would get from Earth. I smile every time I look at it and see the love that my daughter poured into it.
Actor and writer
I care little nowadays for personal possessions but, as time is running out for me and I am achingly aware of my ignorance, I will use my moon trip to educate myself, so that I come back a more cultured Guardian reader. The complete works of Shakespeare will cover the theatre at its most profound. War and Peace will deal with great, daunting literature. And the complete symphonies of Mahler as conducted by their supreme interpreter, Claudio Abbado, will help me look death in the face. I hope the journey working on these will strengthen my weakening brain’s capability, and inspire me to continue to relish the genius of the human animal when I return to its natural habitat.
Standup comedian and resident doctor
I’m not even a frequent flyer of planes – yet if I boarded a spaceship and blasted off like Team Rocket, there are three items I know I’d have in tow. First, a spaceship-load of old birthday cards. Family and friends tend to pen the most wholesome and loving monologues that I read once before banishing them to the loft. A trip to the moon would be a welcome chance to reminisce. In lieu of the notes app on my phone, I’d bring an old-school notepad. I’d need to keep a contemporaneous account of my thoughts and feelings – for example, what words did I scream during takeoff? Do calories count in space? On Earth, it’s gravity that is literally weighing us down, right? So I’d treat myself to a handful of puff-puff (Nigerian donuts). Just don’t tell my personal trainer.
Children’s author and broadcaster
I think when I’m up there I’ll need a favourite taste, a reminder of the past and a reminder of my wife. So this is what I would take. Giant yellow Chilean raisins from W Martyn’s shop in Muswell Hill, London. These are chewy, not too sweet, with a slight touch of citric. I tell children that I eat so many of them that I’ve become Michael Raisin. The oval brown pebble I keep from the back alley where I spent the first 16 years of my life, living in a flat over a shop. It was the only route into our flat, and the site of great cup finals and Test matches, as it were. The “furry”, as we called it, that my wife brought into hospital in 2020, after I had been on a ventilator with coronavirus. It’s a blanket. I was cold all the time, and the things they called blankets – which I thought were sheets – didn’t keep me warm.
Writer and comedian
Undoubtedly I would pack a pair of Crocs. The true giant leap for mankind has been the embrace of comfort and convenience over style. Contact by Carl Sagan is more a handbook than a novel. I think that would be a handy guide for me, should aliens decide to get in touch. Finally a jar of shito, a Ghanaian condiment made of shrimp, tomato and pepper. It’s delicious, though I don’t eat it any more on account of my veganism. But I’d appreciate extraterrestrials learning about shito before they learn about English profanity. Less explaining to do later.
Writer and broadcaster
If I have been dispatched to the moon, that means only one thing: they got me. I have been conscripted. To protect my sanity, stability and integrity (in addition to overcoming the multiple obstacles of claustrophobia, motion sickness and a fear of heights), I would take with me a collection of inspirational thoughts from some of the world’s most successful cynics. Gil Scott-Heron’s Whitey on the Moon perhaps: “A rat done bit my sister Nell / (With Whitey on the moon) / Her face and arms began to swell / (And Whitey’s on the moon) / I can’t pay no doctor bills / (But Whitey’s on the moon) / Ten years from now I’ll be payin’ still / (While Whitey’s on the moon)”. Standup routines on race and space by the great comedian Paul Mooney would also make the trip. White space officials can brush off the misfortune of losing a multimillion-dollar space probe or two, he said, and be forgiven. But a black Nasa official would quickly be bundled into a rocket ship: “Go find the space probe,” they’d tell him. “Don’t come back if you don’t find it.” That’s the only reason I can see that they’d send me.
