When Pluto rolls in closer to the sun, the snow on the surface melts and creates a thin atmosphere. When it rolls out, the atmosphere freezes and it snows and becomes ice. But since the liquid is methane, it's a no go on drinking.

The only good thing about my job is that I know it snows methane on Pluto.

It's liquid, and it's frozen, but is it water?

Ice is water. Frozen methane is called frozen methane, not ice.

AHA! I have asked a scientist, and the consensus is that the ice on the moon can be filtered, unless there are little bugs that live in it that will suck out your eyeballs, which is my theory, and I'm told is as good as any.

Nah, people around here call anything frozen "ice."

I mean, if you put it on a stick, frozen methane would still be a methanesickle.

Oh, sorry for doubting you, DX. I will still insist that you drink it first, and if you live, we can all go live on the moon.

The eyeball suckers have not bee disproven yet.

I'd have no qualms about drinking it at all. Probably a lot cleaner than some of the river water around here. Actually, it would probably be easy enough to distill it. One thing the moon has is plenty of energy.

Hi. I love Crichton. Sorry.

So, in this context, just for fun:

P.K. Dick, love him or hate him?

Crichton is one of those authors whose stories are better on the the screen than they are on the page.

Dick is the god of idea-men, with a writing style that drives me bats. I don't mind if every science fiction ever made is loosely or directly based on his works, though, because his ideas are gold.

I like Jack McDevitt. And would like to offer up James P. Hogan as somebody I think of as "hard" and Greg Egan as somebody who's so hard it hurts. of course, he can't write endings, which is unfortunate, but everything before the ending is one heck of a hard SF journey!