Maybe We Don’t Need to Go to Space Anymore
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Sure, NASA is set to reduce its workforce by at least 2,145 employees , most of them senior-level and with expertise that will be extremely hard to replace. Sure, Sean Duffy, the former Real World cast member currently serving as secretary of transportation (which seems like a more-than-full-time job already) is now also the interim head of NASA. Sure, the Trump budget aims to slash NASA’s funding to the level it was several years before we sent anyone to the moon. The Senate is trying to preserve the budget, but—must it? It’s okay! We didn’t need to go to space again anyway! What’s in space? Nothing. Void, vacuum, Laika’s vengeful ghost, dust, gas, rocks, old Voyagers, a couple of gold records, thousands of Starlink satellites blotting out the view of the stars. It’s not like we haven’t been up there before. Going to space is much too ’60s. The whole theme of the Trump administration is undoing things we did in the 1960s, such as “end polio” and “enforce the Fourteenth Amendment.”
To anyone who says, “I don’t think a former reality-TV star should be in charge of NASA,” I say: Why does NASA deserve any better than the rest of the country?
Indeed, there might be some benefits associated with bringing Real World sensibilities to NASA. Previous administrators would have wasted money trying to actually get to space, instead of entertaining cost-saving ideas such as faking it on a soundstage and giving a press conference where you belligerently insist that you have already landed on Mars but the Fake-News Media just didn’t see it. (The saved money can be used to deport people, preferably people who came here hoping to do science for us because we were a “nice place” with “freedoms.” In a sense, deportation is a kind of space travel. El Salvador is in space.)
It’s not like we’re putting Sean Duffy in charge of a NASA that is going to try to go somewhere. He just needs to sit with it, hold its hand, and make it comfortable. “Do you remember when we used to go to space, Sean?” “Shhhh, grandpa.”
Indeed, I got a look at new missions being contemplated by Duffy’s combined Department of Transportation/NASA, and they are, frankly, a little bleak:
- Fake a moon landing, but on a much worse, dinkier soundstage this time.
- Communicate with extraterrestrial life, but in a hostile, careless way that compels them to immediately attack Earth.
- Space tariffs???
- For the next mission, astronauts will fly to Cincinnati and back, coach class.
- Instead of the planned mission, astronauts will have a sleepover and watch Jupiter Ascending .
- Astronauts will simulate zero gravity by using a bounce house.
- Astronauts will journey to Jupiter, Florida.
- NASA will take over International Star Registry but accept payment in $TRUMP coin only.
- Search for life in the universe, but not intelligent life.
- All astronauts will be routed through Newark Liberty International Airport.
- Light rail will be announced and not built, but for the moon this time.
- All astronauts will be dropped off at the International Space Station, and then NASA will announce that it has to go out to buy cigarettes.
- Speed of light will be revised down to 47 miles an hour to honor Donald J. Trump and make the rate of travel more impressive.
- The team monitoring large asteroids that are coming dangerously close to Earth will start encouraging them to “just come.”
It’s fine. There are some endeavors that are too great for any one individual, goals that require us to come together as a nation and pool our resources to achieve something bigger than any one of us could hope to do alone. And then there is space travel, which is for billionaires.
Besides, if Star Wars has taught us anything, it is that space is full of Nazis. That is the absolute last thing we need: more Nazis .
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Ms Petri was the former humourist at WaPo.
No doubt...
I wish that more people read this but I fear we are getting numb to stupid things coming out of this Administration.
It doesn't help that people are generally stupid to begin with.
I think NASA is here to stay and the man who created the Space Force will need it.
The next logical step would be a joint lunar colony.
Then maybe a joint Earth mission to Mars.
Trump's likely to destroy NASA like he destroys all else.
Musk as the next JFK?
does tesla even make a convertible?
Sure. And for a quarter million you and get one fully loaded
A fully loaded car that runs on ketamine?
30% on everything we import from Venus!
What does Venus have that we don't have? Venutians?
an ammonia atmosphere ...
Wait a minute, isn't that where all humans come from, the ones without a penis ...?, Venus
I have read that men are from Mars.
That cracked me up.
The whole article cracked me up but that especially
Nicoteen, ive heard, is very addictive! Just look what it has done to Trump and his pal, Jeffrey the giraffe Epstein.....
It is very addictive. I'm a pack day smoker, more when I'm drinking.
so youre smoking 4 packs a day....?
only when I'm drinking
So you're smoking 4 packs a day.
all right then
slacker
Yous guys in NE Philly are tuff.
forgitaboutit
actually, i'm in Ohio now
That's so sad....
don't worry, heading back for a long weekend tomorrow to raise hell at a buddies funeral!