Farmer in the Sky

Several weeks ago I read about a future expedition to colonize Mars. This made me request from the library Farmer in the Sky, by Robert Heinlein, a tale about colonizing Ganymede. I read lots of Heinlein's kids books then; this was one of my favorite books.

On the trip out on the Mayflower, Bill the youth and first-person in the book, writes about school. I loved the highlighted sentence below that was in this excerpt of a paragraph:

Each class consisted of about two dozen kids and some adult who knew something about something. (You'd be surprised how many adults don't know anything about anything!) The grown up would talk about what he knew best and the kids would listen, then we would ask questions and he would ask questions. No real examinations, no experiments, no demonstrations, no stereos.

MacDonalds on Mount Everest?

I just read how an 80 year old reached the top of Mt Everest (oldest person) and telephoned someone to tell them he was there.

Someday we'll read how a person reached Mt Everest and then went to the MacDonalds for a Big Mac! I suppose it would be possible if a few people carried up a mock MacDonalds sign and Arch, a counter, and a stove, some food and started serving BigMacs. I suppose it is hard to cook at that altitude, but….

Hillary and Tensing - how come it was so difficult for you to reach the top?? No incentive because there were no restaurants or bars there I suppose...