by Daniel "Tanz" Lattanzio, staff writer

Okay, you know Neil Armstrong's first words on the moon were, "This is one small step for man, and one giant leap for mankind."
If you think about it, he basically said, "This is one small step for mankind, and one giant leap for mankind."

What the Hell does that mean?

Now, if you look up the event, reference books have "fixed" it so he says, "This is one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." That was pretty nice of them, eh? They say it was the poor communication between the moon and Earth that made the "a" disappear; instead of just admitting Armstrong fucked up. Some great example of human achievement: first man to walk on the moon...and he blows his lines! Hell, any moron can do that! Anyway, this leads to the main point of my column.

We have a couple of RC cars tooling around up and Mars, taking pretty pictures and breaking down, and the President wants to have people up there in the next decade or so to change the batteries. What is more interesting to me is that talks are slowly beginning again of colonizing the moon! Sounds cool, right? But really...what is there to do on Mars…or the moon for that matter? Bounce?

So, I began thinking. Hard. The moon is what...1/4 the size of the Earth? (Or is it 1/8? I can never remember.)

But...the Earth is 3/4 water. That means, at the very least, the moon has half the land area of the Earth. You can't grow plants up there, and there's no water; there's just rock, man. And we want a colony up there?

I began to think harder. Then it hit me. Lunar Penal Colony.

Think about it. The whole moon as a big prison! (I know...the idea's been done in sci-fi books...but let's seriously consider it.) You wouldn't even need guards! Just train inmates how not to release the atmospheric dome and to wear spacesuits if they're going outside to play.

Simple.

Supplies can be dropped off via space shuttle! The convicts have to unload it themselves (teaches them to have a good work ethic). What if they hijack the shuttle, you may ask. Let them! It's not like a car - it has no ignition switch! And if, by some stroke of luck, they manage to figure out how to fly the shuttle...then where are they going to go? Venus? There's no place to land there! They'll have to come back to Earth. And with satellites and global radar, they won't get far...just shoot them down!

And what happens if they decide to have a jailbreak? Hell - I say we should encourage it! Where are they going to go? You don't need fences on the moon, people! It's not like Detroit, where your new neighbor may be an escaped felon. Plus...they could have security cameras EVERYWHERE! You thought “The Truman Show” was a neat concept? We're talking “Cops” meets “The Real World” here, folks! Fuck Survivor and The Real World – this is ULTIMATE reality TV! They wouldn't be able to drop a fork without 100 million people watching! You could easily sell advertisement spots to big companies like Ford and Microsoft! We're talking about cleaning up the crime problem AND helping the economy PLUS great TV! And no separation of the sexes - we're talking co-ed punishment! Okay...maybe sterilize the women so they don't start breeding little convicts. You think “One Life to Live” or “Young and the Reckless” are great soap operas? Imagine the pathos and drama of the convicted men and women trapped on a hostile moon with no one but each other to turn to!

Think this is cruel and unusual punishment? Then imagine how a victim's family feels with a killer/rapist/scout master is released from prison due to over-crowding. And it's not a death sentence, so the bleeding hearts can't bitch; they can survive up there! Hell - they'd probably just enjoy it as much as they enjoy their prison stays here on Earth.
This is just an idea...but think it over, it makes sense. I'd make a kick-ass President