According to the most recent unsolicited email in my inbox, I can buy an acre of the moon for $29.99.
This makes me think: For a few thousand dollars, I can buy adjoining acres across Mare Vaporum, rig them with floodlights, and use the moon as a PDA screen. With each acre as a pixel that would be…lessee… 320×240… 76800 acres, times $29.99…
$2,303,232.
Okay, a little more that a few thousand dollars. But think of the possibilities!
320 x 240 is roughly the resolution of a television.
A square acre is roughly 208.7 feet on a side.
208.7×320 = 66,784 feet, divided by 5280 =~12.65 miles by 8.4 miles.
The moon is ~238,000 miles away…
Hmm… I may need to use a telescope. And at ~186,000 miles per second, radio/light waves takes a second and a half to get there, and a second and a half to get back.
Now: the moon is 2,162 miles in diameter, so my PDA screen will be roughly .55% of its visible width. Atmospheric disturbance aside, it will be visible – sans-telescope – as a flickering point of light just north of center. Visibility will be bad during the full moon and great during the new moon.
I am hereby taking orders for advertising time on my Lunar PDA. The current rate is $1,000,000 per second. However, if you want to upload and run a game, you may do so for free. Imagine: Lunar Lander on the moon.
I need to get out more.