Return to Space in a BIG WAY
The Guardian solemnly parses Trump’s Fractured Astronomy:
Trump’s declaration shocked many space enthusiasts, because the moon has not traditionally been regarded as part of Mars.
The leading theory is that a collision between Earth and a planet-sized entity, many years ago, resulted in debris that eventually became the moon. On average Mars is 140m miles from the moon. Nasa did not immediately respond to a question from the Guardian asking if the moon is part of Mars.
Well it’s Friday afternoon. I’m sure they’ll get to it on Monday.
Irrespective of whether the moon is part of Mars (it isn’t), Trump’s announcement was doubly surprising given his previous enthusiasm for a moon trip. His criticism of Nasa for “talking about going to the moon” came just three weeks after Trump championed the idea of a lunar visit.
Why so he did!
Under my Administration, we are restoring @NASA to greatness and we are going back to the Moon, then Mars. I am updating my budget to include an additional $1.6 billion so that we can return to Space in a BIG WAY!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 13, 2019
Maybe he meant the other Moon?
[I]t soon emerged that Trump’s moon reversal may have been provoked by the Fox Business tv channel. One hour before the president offered his take on the moon’s origin and his criticism of Nasa, Fox guest Neil Cavuto had expressed scepticism over a moon trip.
Cavuto reportedly told the TV cable network that Nasa is “refocusing on the moon, the next sort of quest, if you will, but didn’t we do this moon thing quite a few decades ago?”
Well that’s the thing, though: if it’s on tv, it’s true. You can’t be sure it’s true if it’s just NASA telling you, or people like astronomers and engineers and Rocket Scientists. But if it’s Mister TV? Then you know.
Surely they’ll have stopped laughing by then!
Lady M, I don’t think NASA is going to stop laughing about that quite so soon. In fact, they may die laughing over that one.
I bet even NOAA is laughing about it.
I bet even the Flat Earth Society is laughing.
But think of the savings.. By announcing that the Moon is part of Mars, Trump has just saved NASA a shipload of money. Getting to Mars just became one helluvalot cheaper. The man should be hailed as a financial genius!
I’m surprised there aren’t already tariffs on imports from the Moon-People.
They must all live around on the dark side. But it would not surprise me in the slightest if Captain Bonespurs was not right now negotiating top-secret real estate deals with them. Bigly.
He did not get to where he is today by selling dog food.door to door.
Anyone who has landed on my site for more than 1 nanosecond knows I’m no fan of Trumpenstein. However, my first response to reading his stupid tweet was that he was referring to returning to the moon as part of the process of getting to Mars.
Pliny, if that were the case, why did he begin the tweet by stating that NASA should not be talking about returning to the moon?
Pliny and AoS: It could be either, both, or something else entirely; for the Donald’s mind works in mysterious ways.
As for me, the moon is not only separate from Mars but is indeed made of cheese and inhabited, as proved by the documentary film A Grand Day Out.
Reworking of an old joke:
Trump wanted a moon rock. NASA scientists didn’t want to waste a precious resource on him. One of the scientists, cleaning out the break area, found an old sandwich in the back of the fridge, looked like petrified lunch meat, and thought it looked kind of like a moon rock. He scraped off the bits of stale bread, and sent it to Trump. Trump was delighted, and he hired a couple of people to analyze it.
A few weeks later, Trump’s team issued a press release: “You know how they used to say the Moon was made of green cheese? Well, it’s a bunch of baloney.”
#11: Ba-dum tshh.
I want to change the moon’s name to I can’t believe it’s not Phobos’.
Bruce, #10, bless you for thinking Trump’s mind works at all.
AoS #13, you said exactly what I was thinking. Guess that’s what happens when you go away to have a life for a day without accessing the Internet; someone else takes all the good lines.
Think outside the square. NASA could fly Captain Bonespurs to the Moon, but tell him he was on Mars: first ever to land there. Leave him there to set up a Trump Real Estate office, and tell him they will collect him on the way back, after they have visited the Moon, which as he well knows, is a suburb of Mars, only a few blocks away. Then call him on his cellphone and tell him that thanks to a minor navigational error, he has been landed by mistake on Pluto. Sorry about that. But he only has to be patient, a space bus will be along shortly to pick him up and take him wherever he wants to go. Just give the driver the directions, and then sit back and enjoy the trip.
That should take care of him for a few thousand years. And by the time he gets back, time dilation will mean that nobody on Earth will be able to understand the ancient language he speaks.