August, 20th, 2016; SELENEMAX INC. headquarters; Chicago, Illinois.

"Well...Congratulations, Doctor Fergeson!
Come in! Come in!" the SELENEMAX CEO, George Perlman, boisterous
exclaimed, "You and your science staff did an excellent job sorting through that lunar
material for the stuff we want to put on the market...Fast..."

The pudgy balding chief executive for SELENEMAX INC. vigorously shook
his chief geologist's hand, grinning triumphantly as he did so. Dr. Eric Ferguson
squinted to try fending of the pungently irritating cigar smoke blown his way.

"Well thank you, sir, but I was only a small part
of the picture. There are hundreds of SELENEMAX employees that need to be thanked,
especially those two brave astronauts, Dirk McAllister and Rupal Kirsharma."
George Perlman flippantly & impatiently waved off the response, "Yea yea yea! I've already
given each one of them a bonus package and a well-done speech." he casually gestured
towards a comfortably padded form-fitting chair near his desk, "Sit down, doctor, we got future
lunar mining and prospecting activities to discuss."

Doctor Fergeson warily sat down, staring intently at his CEO's large smouldering Cuban cigar
sticking out of one corner of Mr. Perlman's cynically twisted mouth. The CEO immediately
realized that his cigar was becoming a momentary distraction.

"My Cuban cigar, huh? Got your attention? You can thank Castro croaking last decade,
and the CIA's new man in Havana, for making these things legal again." George turned
to deposit the cigar temporarily in an ashtray on his desk. "Though we're not here
to chat about cigars. But I could get Arlene to fix you a drink if you want.
What is it you like, doctor? Scotch on the Rocks? Arlene?!!" George Perlman rattled off
the words in a rapid machinegun delivery.

"Yes, Mister Perlman." Came the reply on the CEO's portable tieclip-sized intercom
fastened to his breastpocket. Doctor Fergeson politely waved off his CEO's offer.
"No thanks, Mister Perlman, I think you want to get down to business, so do I. "

George gave a quick approving nod. "That's all right, Arlene, our chief geologist doesn't want a drink at this time.
You want to get down to business, doctor?....Good! Then let's get straight to the matter at hand."
he replied, turning to face a large flat plasma TV screen on his wall, "Project Argo moon map on screen please!"
There was an electronic chirp in response and the large screen came alive with an detailed
slowly rotating image of the moon . A red marker point throbbed over Copernicus Crater.
"I'll only rehash the basics of what we have accomplished two months ago" explained the CEO,
"since you know the details, doctor. We sent Rupal down into that crater in that 5,000 pound
spacecraft. A moonlanding spacecraft too small to have a pressurized cabin, leaving Dirk in orbit
in the two-seater spacecraft with its pressurized cabin. That crater turned out to be the right one for our company to exploit
thanks to your geological work, doctor, and thanks to that small rover we landed inside it 3 years ago.
We got there just in time....The Chinese in two years are going to land one of their taiko...taiko..."
"Taikonauts." explained Eric Fergusen.
George wagged a finger approvingly.
"Yea! That's what the Chinese call them. They're going to land their taikonauts in Alphonsus Crater, claiming
that they'll find microscopic diamonds on the central peak in that crater. NASA's now out of the picture.
Russia's got her own problems...And Europe?...They want to send people to Mars. They're not interested in making
money on the moon." George Perlman again grabbed his cigar and started to puff away once more.
"You should take up cigars, doctor!" Eric shook his head demurely in silent response.
Again Mr. Perlman spoke, pumping out a rapid flurrry of questions.
"Rupal collected how much of that lunar stuff? The orange beads?" he asked.
"He recovered, filtered and returned about three liters worth of orange glassy-beads between a half-millimeter
and a millimeter in size." explained Eric.
"Let's see..." the CEO awkwardly pondered, " a liter I recall is somewhere around two cups in volume?"
Dr. Ferguson nodded.
"So we got about six to seven cups worth of....of how many of those glassy beads do you estimate?" asked George.
"I'd estimate close to 12-13 million orange glassy-beads between a half-millimeter and a millimeter in size were
filtered out and recovered by Rupal on the lunar surface." The geologist added.
George Perlman grinned. "De Beers has promised that they'll value each of those glassy beads at 200 dollars
a piece. That's 2,400 dollars for twelve lunar beads set into a single Engagement Ring. Do you know how much
a single Engagement Ring with a half-carat diamond costs nowadays, doctor?"
Eric sighed, responding reluctantly, " I'm not sure what it is now, but 20 years ago I paid 3,600 dollars to buy
Alice an Engagement Ring with a 3/4 carat diamond. "
George paused before responding, "Close enough! Do you know that we have a waiting list for....2,200,000
engaged couples around the world and the numbers grow each year?....Rupal returned only enough beads to satisfy only a million of those customers."
Eric shrugged, not knowing how to respond..
"But 12 million lunar glassy beads times 200 dollars a piece is only 1.2 billion dollars." George Perlman sniffed
disapprovingly. "But we're still losing money! It cost us 800 million to send those two astronauts to recover all those
lunar beads....Why we spent 1.6 billion dollars on two dress-rehearsal missions, one in Earth orbit, and one in lunar
orbit, I'm not happy about....WE NEED TO RETURN MRE LUNAR MATERIAL TO MAKE A DAMN PROFIT!"
George angrily roared out.