Right this second many millions of miles from here the first orbital study of Mercury is going on. Now you may not think thats got much to do with parenting and i would have thought the same until today.

We had just returned from the hospital with our youngest (3rd) and I wandered to the shops with our second in tow only for him to start pointing over my shoulder shouting, “‘oon!” Now bearing in mind he’s not even two yet and to be honest I’m not entirely sure how many times he’s seen the moon as he’s usually all tucked up in bed by the time its out I was struggling to understand what it was he was trying to say. It was early in the afternoon after all. Sure enough I turned round and there it was high in the sky and my son had a huge grin on his face and it got me thinking. I wasn’t much older than him when I started wanting to be a spaceman when I grew up and I was 8 when I got my first telescope. Astronomy seems to be something that lights a spark in young kids minds and very few people seem to realise it until it’s to late I think.

During the 70’s the Mariner 10 space craft swooped around Mercury a few times but despite this we still have only seen 50% of the planets surface.

Until now that is. On the 14th January 2008 the Messenger space craft took this picture.

Trying to explain that this photo was taken from 270,000 miles away from Mercury doesn’t really phase a child. Telling them that the journey to the shops that you go on every day is one mile and they still won’t really get just how far away the planet is from the space craft. Tell them it would take walking to and from the shops for for over 700 years just to walk that distance and watch their face as they start to comprehend. Once that one sinks in try explaining just how many miles it is from Earth to Mercury! I’ve just had to explain why Pluto isn’t on the list of planets at the back of number 1 child’s homework diary but it’s on all our posters.

If the sky’s are clear tonight take your kids out and see if you can find mercury. Just after sunset you should just see it low on the horizon and explain to them just how we get there.

Nine months ago Mark Kelso gave up life as he knew it and started work on his first large scale Lego spaceship. You know and i know we’ll never make anything on this size and scale. We’ve got kids to feed and support until they screw us out of what little money we have left and put us in a home when we turn 50 but we can dream can’t we?

At 231 studs long and something like 14kg in weight its a bit of a beast but it proves that with time and effort you can literally build just about anything with Lego.

Our eldest has only just started to get into Lego this last year but due to the ages of the other children doesn’t get to play with it anywhere near as much as I’d like. Sorry I meant as he’d like. Our one problem though is that whilst our imaginations are unlimited our building skills are. Whilst he’s fine with anything he builds no matter how ‘good’ it actually turns out as soon as he sees anything that someone who knows what they are doing can do he puts it back in the box and thats us for another day. I have to say until very recently I felt the same but those days are gone now and hopefully never to return. If i can learn then so can he especially as he has a good 25 years on me! All those web pages full of models built by those that actually know their way around a Lego brick no longer put ‘The Fear’ into me but instead have filled my head with so many idea. So much so that some of them actually sound quite appealing to a six year old so I think we’ve found our summer project!