(2009-07-25)"We're going to the moon" I say. My students just stared at me smirking. "No way. In what?". I had this crazy idea (together with some other tutors), that we could fly in makeshift rockets to the moon, and that it would be inexpensive and easy. We are in a large attic space in one of the college building where the rockets are being put together. Some of the students have bet that we can't do it. I genuinely believe that they are wrong, and willingly took the bet. As the launch grows nearer, there are technical hitches. One of them is how to keep the rocket airtight, and how to break out of the earth's orbit. I'm suddenly having doubts - I don't think we have thought this through. There's a half-hearted attempt to launch a test rocket, which looks more like a large firework. It dawns on me that this is embarrassingly bad. My colleagues don't give up yet, perhaps due to mis-placed pride. I have to face my students later in the corridor where they snigger and make sarcastic remarks.