Daily MOS: Wan Hu, the Legendary First Astronaut

We’re coming up on a year in lockdown, and I would do just about anything to get the fuck out of my house.

And somewhere between 500 and 4000 years ago, the first astronaut did whatever it took to get the fuck off the planet.
(Maybe.)

Today’s Moment of Science… the first astronaut*.

We’ve had rocket technology to various degrees for thousands of years, but using the words “rocket” and “technology” for the era we’re discussing today seems premature. It also serves as a good reminder that science is not a collection of facts or subjects, or “truth.” Science is a method, a process by which we objectively observe and attempt to understand the world around us.

We weren’t always into letting things like “processes” and “objectivity” stand in our way of using the Scientific Method v1.0: fuck around and find out.

There are accounts placing this story both in 2,000 BC and in the 16th century, but if it did happen at all, from most accounts it seems more likely to have been in the 16th century. This is in large part because gunpowder was invented in the ninth century, which was likely a part of the attempted launch. Also, 2,000 BC predated Chinese writing and record keeping by a few hundred years, which makes any records of the flight in earlier times more likely a legend than history.

Which, to be fair, this might all well be a legend.

A high ranking government official and reportedly a bit of an eccentric, Wan Hu despaired about there being nowhere new in the world to discover and claim for his own. Star gazing was a hobby, a distraction, until one day he realized what was right in front of him this whole time:

He could be king of the fucking Moon.

He sorted out how to get there. There was no framework at the time for flight, but they knew rockets could propel something upwards. So why not rockets propelling a chair upwards? That could surely be sufficient.

Forty-seven.

He strapped forty-seven rockets to his chair. He also thought to attach two kites to it. You know, to ease the vessel’s plummet to the Earth when it descended from the heavens.

To be fair, they didn’t know, and that’s how you find out. You experiment. You should probably do a few unmanned tests first, though. But the best part about science? Even if you fuck up, at least you learn how something doesn’t work.

When the big day came, he sat atop the chair while forty-seven servants each lit a fuse simultaneously. With a colossal ‘BANG,’ he was gone.

But probably not to the Moon.

Though there was no evidence that he made it to the moon, there’s also no evidence that he didn’t make it. Because there was never any evidence seen of his existence again. I expect that number of rockets would shred you cell from cell.

Today, the Wan-Hoo Crater on the Moon honors the man, the legend, the possible myth, the first astronaut, Wan Hu.

This has been your daily Moment of Science, suggesting that if you’re gonna fuck up, fuck up new. That’s science.

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