A Problem for You...

This page is not so much a story as it is a free game included with the book. It has nothing to do with Doctor Who and the Doctor isn't even mentioned, although it may be a sort of sequel to Dressed for a Walk in that it also talks about "the surface of the moon."

The game is that you have to put the 15 items in the red box into the order of their importance for being on the surface of the moon, and if you get it right then I think you are allowed to become an astronaut. To make this harder than it first appears

There is no 'correct' answer.

The game is too hard for me by myself so I enlisted the help from my friends and top spaceship designers the Monkeys With Badges. Here is our answer.

food concentrate

We are cats and Monkeys (With Badges), so we don't nom "concentrate" and, in fact, don't even know what that is. But as it is the most important item we have read so far we will number it 1.

parachute silk

The Monkeys didn't think this would be too useful, but as a cat I can see many uses for a ball of silk thread to keep me amused while away from my friends and the internets, so this gets numbered 1 (moving the previous 1 down a number as a result).

two .45 calibre pistols

At first we thought that these would be useful for shooting any hostile aliens that may be on the moon, but then we remembered that we don't have thumbs so would not be able to use them. Therefore this gets numbered 3.

two 110lb tanks of oxygen

Tanks would allow us to drive around on the moon's surface, so this sounds very useful, and if there were two it would mean I could have one and the Monkeys With Badges could have the other. This gets numbered 1. We don't know what oxygen would be used for but maybe it would turn out to be a valuable extra feature.

a magnetic compass

This is obviously another cat toy, for when I get bored playing with the silk. While clearly important, I don't think this is the most important item so far, so it gets numbered 3.

solar-powered FM receiver-transmitter

We were all agreed that this would be vital to stay in contact with our friends and the internets while in space and on the surface of the moon, so it gets numbered 1.

first aid kit containing injection needles

Needles! Mew mew mew! This is too scary for me, it gets numbered 7.

life raft

We don't think this would be useful at all on the surface of the moon because it has no water, so it gets numbered 7.

5 gallons of water

Oh, I understand now - if we take 5 gallons of water with us we can use the life raft on the water. That's clever; it is like a puzzle from an old computer game. This gets numbered at 7 since it is only as much use as the life raft.

one case of dehydrated pet milk

At last: noms! This is certainly one of the most important things on the list, up there with connection to the internets (cats cannot live on noms alone). I will number it with a 2.

box of matches

On the one paw matches are dangerous, but on the other paw we don't have thumbs and so can't use them anyway. Either paw leads me to the conclusion that matches are not useful, and the Monkeys have pointed out that you can't use matches in space. Maybe that is what the oxygen in the tanks was supposed to be for, but I will number this as 10.

50' of nylon rope

Rope is not as good as thread for playing with so I would have to rate this below the parachute silk. The Monkeys have suggested that if you could catch an alien with the rope then you could get it to pull you to where you wanted to go. While that is an ingenious suggestion, I think that we have to put this behind both the parachute silk and the tanks, so it goes in at 5.

stellar map of the moon's constellations

As useful as a map sounds at first, we don't believe in astrology so we don't think this would be much use after all. It gets numbered 12.

signal flares

Science Fiction stories tell us that signal flares have many uses, and that the one thing they almost never get used for is signalling. As a result we are agreed that these would be good to have for any unforseen contingencies, although we don't know what those might be. This gets position number 5.

portable heating unit

Keeping warm would be important if we were on the dark side of the moon, but the game explicitly says we are on the light side, so we could roml in a sunbeam if we wanted to be warm. This gets numbered 14.

If NASA is reading this and wants us to become astronauts, please leave a comment below.