Spaced

One of those "factoids" that you always see on restaurant placemats and Larry King's three-dot column in USA Today is the statement that "The Great Wall of China is the only man-made object on earth that you can see on the moon."

I've said it a thousand times, I must have been absent the day in elementary school when they explained the solar system, because any child currently attending elementary school has a much better grasp on planetary matters than I do.

So I take it from those who know, and NASA types say it ain't so. They say no one can really make out an earthly details on the moon, but then again, they say that people on the International Space Station can't see the Wall either because the guy in front of them keeps standing up.

NASA is quick to point out that this rumor has been floating around (not in outer space, but right here) since the1930s, and that was a good long time before we started sending manned space missions up in the air.

Here's the view, and what you might take to be the Great Wall is actually a restroom line at Disney Beijing!

NASA does say that the boundary between Earth’s and outer space is about 62 miles above sea level. As a gauge, it's 55 miles from our house in world-famous Carney, MD to Pennsylvania Dutch Country, but that's driving, not shooting straight up in a rocket.

The best test of this came when China sent an astronaut up in space in 2003. Yang Liwei is his name, and when he got back, he said, “The scenery was very beautiful. But I didn’t see the Great Wall.”

But there is something quite visible from up there, and it's something (else) I've never heard of! It's a gigantic 64,000 acre agricultural area in Southeastern Spain in the Almería region. As you see below, the entire place is virtually covered in plastic greenhouses producing 1.5 billion dollars worth of produce - tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and so forth - every year.

So ask for extra tomatoes and pickles on your next sub and feel like part of something special!