The Joshua Tree Crater Company presents
Meet Dick and Jane.
Two people, one Moon, and an unreasonable amount of enthusiasm for gifts.
Space exploration, not space exploitation!
Panel 1
About Jane
- Jane is a millennial with a generous heart and a very determined spirit.
- She is extremely conservation minded. She once slept in a tree for three entire hours to protect a forest. Personal best.
- Now she has set her sights on something farther away. About 238,855 miles farther, as a matter of fact.
- Jane knows how fragile the Moon really is. No wind, no rain, no cleaning crew. Everything left up there stays up there, including 96 bags of Apollo astronaut waste.
- The Moon’s surface still holds the scars of four billion years of impacts, a history book science has barely started reading.
- She also learned that the carbon, calcium and iron in all of us were made inside stars. We are, technically, stardust. Jane took this personally.
So Jane dreamed up The Joshua Tree Crater Company, a space-themed novelty gift shop with unique gift ideas for kids, grown-ups, and the holidays, that gets little ones excited about space exploration, not space exploitation.
I wore my good suit for this.
Panel 2
About Dick
- Dick is a confident guy with a great smile. He always dresses very well. Nobody has ever seen him in sweatpants.
- As a little boy he dreamed of flying to the Moon as an astronaut. As a grown man he asked Jane about her Moon conservation plans instead. Close enough.
- He was so impressed that he pledged stewardship of two symbolic acres through our sister site, ExplOrbit (opens in a new tab). Nobody can own the Moon, and Dick is fine with that. The certificate hangs on his office wall, where every client, friend and relative can see it. Every. Single. One.
- He also got a Moon map and a lunar passport for his Moon notes. Stamps so far: zero. He is working on it.
- Then Jane suggested he step it up a bit and name a crater. Dick agreed, of course. Now he brings The Joshua Tree Crater Company star chart on every stargazing date.
Dick and Jane have great respect for the Earth, the Moon, the stars, and especially for each other.
Panel 3
Dick and Jane stargaze together
Joshua Tree National Park is an International Dark Sky Park, famous for its dark skies. The stars are free. The park pass is not. Let’s go!
Jane
I already packed our gear. Our crater’s coordinates are in the Field Notes journal. Let’s go!
Dick
The Moon belongs to all of humanity.
It is not for sale, and it never will be. What you can give is a dedication: a real crater, a name beside it in the JT Crater Company Registry, and a stargazing gift set shipped free.
Give the gift of a craterDick and Jane are our cartoon mascots, not customers, and their story is made up for fun. The craters are real.
