“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.”
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This quote is often attributed to a man called Les Brown, an American author and motivational speaker. It's an interesting quote. On the one hand, so full of optimism; on the other, so very, very odd. Imagine if some particularly ambitious individual were to take this phrase literally...
First, let's identify the moon in question. Assuming that we're starting from our own planet, Earth, the nearest moon to us is our own; the distance to which varies, but averages at around 380,000 kilometres. The next closest would likely be the Martian moons of Deimos or Phobos, but the amount of time it would take for even a particularly speedy bullet to reach these would make for a very long wait.
So, we've chosen our target (the Moon); now we need to decide on our weapon. Since the first half of the phrase simply says "shoot" for the moon, one could be forgiven for thinking that perhaps some form of firearm is used. Let's humour that idea for a moment before we correct it.
Supposing we were to fire a simple bullet, we could assume that it could probably get there in a matter of days, but what would be the point? Similarly for most missiles, the best you're going to do is add to the already sizable number of craters on the surface. No, if you're shooting for the Moon, presumably you’re looking for something more satisfying than that. But if you fire something that perhaps destroys our most notable naturally occurring satellite, you need to be pretty sure of what you're doing and why, since that’s going to have a massive impact on our own planet. Admittedly the distance is impressive, but get your trajectory right and you're basically aiming for a spherical object with a diameter of 3,474 kilometres. Perhaps scoring 180 with a single hand of darts is more impressive (and practical) if hitting a target is all you're going for.
Reading further on in our original quote, the second sentence says that "you'll land among the stars". Did you notice the "you" part in there? Fire a gun and "you" stay exactly where you are. This implies that you're in for some space travel. Wonderful! Or not...
The quote misses out a few vital points. What our author fails to mention is the lack of atmosphere on the moon, the infinite vacuum of space and of course the distance to those stars we could potentially end up among. By now, our newly inspired pupil is hurtling towards an inevitable death, if not through lack of oxygen, then through simply expanding to twice your normal size and dying of ebullism.
Supposing against all hope that we miss the Moon and yet somehow survive space, finally ending up "among the stars". The nearest star to us is the Sun at a mere 150 million kilometres, which at nearly 6,000 degrees Kelvin, would destroy us entirely before we even got close. And our sun is by no means the largest or hottest.
In short, some phrases, no matter how pleasant, are actually quite silly.