In 1994, Rocket Science Games was the hip, new, edgy, “Hollywood meets Silicon Valley” video game company — or, alternatively, a “big hat, no cattle” startup — with a rock in the lobby:
Our receptionists’ desk was built on the wing of a WWII P-51 fighter plane, and the rest of the office décor matched. All that is, except for our lobby, as our offices were on the 4th floor. When you got off the elevator, you faced a non descript corporate-looking set of walls.This was about the time Christies and Sotheby’s were starting to auction Soviet space program artifacts, and I was thinking that perhaps a spacesuit in the lobby would be appropriate given our name.
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A week later as our employees came up the elevator there was a Lucite case on a pedestal with a single grey rock, lit with a single spotlight, on a velvet pillow. In front of it was a brass plaque that read:
“Moon rock, Apollo 18, July 1973 – Copernicus Crater.”For the next few years, people from all around South of Market would come by the Rocket Science Games lobby to see our moon rock. It added to the mystique of the company – which helped with raising money and getting press ink. Everyone agreed that having our own moon rock was way cool.
In all that time, not a single person who admired the moon rock questioned its provenance or authenticity. A bit surprising considering the intersection between geekdom and space. Maybe it was just too much ancient history.NASA’s moon missions ended at Apollo 17.
The rock was a piece of rubble from the [recently demolished] Embarcadero Freeway.
Only over time would I realize it augured the future of the company.