nature: outer space

I used to believe that we lived inside of the Earth, not on its outside surface. I always wanted to feel the inside edge.

When I was about four, I thought we all lived *in* the Earth, that the sky was a giant solid dome that had a door for astronauts to get through and that all the pictures of Earth from space where just pictures of the outside of the sky dome.

When I was 6 years old, I thought that if I'll tie about 100 baloons from a rope and I'll get on the other end of it, I'll fly. The single thing that didn't made me jump from a building with 8 levels was the thought: what if there are too many ballons and they'll take me up in the sky and I'll never go down again?

I used to believe that the stars in the sky were one of two things: 1) they were holes created in the floor of heaven by the high heels of dancing girl angels and, 2) they were little peep holes created by all the people in heaven. They used the holes to look down on their familes below and make sure they were safe. (My dad passed away recently, so I'm back to believing this one.)

I believed many of those sparkling things in the sky were satellites. Every company, every satellite tv, radio, and telephone company had at least a dozen of them. It wasn't until I was in my early 20s that I learned in a college astronomy class that satellites are extremely hard to see. ... During a lab outdoors at night I pointed out to my professor (who happened to work for Nasa in his free time) what I though was a satellite. He informed me it was a star. I then proceeded to ask why it was flashing red, white, and blue then (because, American satellites flash lights that we can see, right?). He very flatly said "it's twinkling."

I used to believe that the sun was following me

I used to believe each country was a planet

I used to think stars were the persons in the sky

I used to believe that the moon was nothing more than the sun that God put a 'moon pocket' on. The reason why we could only see one side of it was because the zipper was on the other side.

When I was little, I used to think that the moon was following me when I rode in the car. If i was in trouble, I would remind my parents that the moon was going to take me from them if they weren't nice!

I was convinced that the moon was actually a spacecraft that was operated by a bunch of scientists who all looked like either Sigourney Weaver or Uhura from Star Trek, except for the captain who was an old fat bald-headed guy. They all used supercomputers to move the moon across the sky, and would make it rise at different times each day to confuse people.

Over 20 years ago (it is presently 2009) I felt sure that one day Pluto would be declared to be not a true planet (No kidding!).

I used to believe that when my parents talked about 'watching the ball drop' on New Year's Eve that everyone watched the moon fall from the sky. I didn't know it had anything to do with Dick Clark and Times Square!!

I thought that fireworks were a natural phenomenon, like lightening or shooting stars. I didn't find out the truth until one fourth of July when I asked my mom how they 'knew' when it was time to go off.

I used to think the world as seen from space was just the outer shell. People, cities and even the sky were inside the globus! So then it made sense to me why nuclear rockets would destroy the world: they would shoot up and pierce the world's outer shell.

I thought the moon rose in the west and set in the east, because it was the opposite of the sun. I didn't discover otherwise until fourth grade.