No jobs for asteroid wranglers or space undertakers

Today’s question:

I have two questions.

Why don’t we land an asteroid on the moon or put it into orbit with the space station so we could study it and why don’t we send spaceships full of coffins for maybe five millions years from now so some other civilization might study us?

Many years ago I sat next to a veteran reporter whose first job at the old Phoenix Gazette was “lobby reporter.”

He sat down in the lobby to listen to people who wandered in off the street looking to share some ideas with a reporter.

I always thought that would be an interesting job and sometimes I think I have it now.

These are certainly ... ahem … interesting ideas.

I’m sure if you could figure out how to wrangle a huge rock hurtling through space at who-knows-how many thousands of miles an hour onto the surface of the moon or pull it into orbit next to the space station, NASA would love to hear about it.

As for coffins in space, gee, I don’t know.

I think maybe in the future such a civilization will have to figure us out by themselves without us forwarding them any corpses. Is water from Salt River Project canals ever used for human consumption? I’m not quite sure what you mean. The water in those canals is mostly headed for either irrigation or to water treatment plants where it is made fit for human consumption.

Or are you asking if you can drink water right out of the canals?

I wouldn’t if I were you.

SRP canal water is a mix of water from the Salt and Verde rivers, the Central Arizona Project canal, groundwater pumped from wells, and storm water or return flow from agricultural uses.

Who knows what’s in it before it gets treated somewhere along the line.