Stephen Bedford, age 10, of Crewe, Virginia, for his question:

Why must the lunar astronauts look up to see the earth?

Naturally the earthlings look up to see the moon in the sky above our heads. When we think of the astronauts up there on the moon, it seems logical that they would have to look down on the earth. But they don't. They see the earth, hanging up there above their heads looking like a multi colored jewel in the lunar skies. Since this is so, then something must be wrong with our notions of up and down.

We earthlings are used to the idea that down is under our feet and up is over our heads. But as space agers, we know that the sky is a vast ocean of space, surrounding the whole world. The moon is out there in the space above our heads, so are the stars and the sun. Astronauts voyage up and out across space to reach the moon. When they land, the spacious sky is over their heads. They look up and out across space at the earth, just as we look up and out across space at the moon