Vice President Mike Pence visited NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida this week. While on his tour of the facilities, the VP saw a piece of equipment in the Orion clean room that he just had to touch. The one problem was that the hardware that Pence touched had a sign directly above it that clearly stated “DO NOT TOUCH” in bold red letters. That moment was caught on camera by Reuters photographer Mike Brown and the pic instantly became a meme.
C'mon dude, really? pic.twitter.com/SqZZ43exxl
— Mike Rundle (@flyosity) July 7, 2017
— Tony Shaw 📚 (@Maynardgcrabbs) July 7, 2017
He wanted his own orb moment pic.twitter.com/SE14czbsUq
— Jim DePaolis (@wecanbanewforce) July 7, 2017
https://twitter.com/Melangetic/status/883174104177758210
https://twitter.com/yngling/status/883138788318433280
— Rapacitor (@RaPaCiToR13) July 7, 2017
https://twitter.com/samtayrey/status/883218275978678272
U can't touch th—HEY WHAT THE HELL MIKE pic.twitter.com/PQluMoc0YW
— Peter Durfee (@Durf) July 7, 2017
Pence took a page out of President Donald Trump’s playbook and took a humorous shot at Senator Marco Rubio.
Sorry @NASA…@MarcoRubio dared me to do it! pic.twitter.com/qIYtKOPyFh
— Vice President Mike Pence Archived (@VP45) July 7, 2017
Rubio answered back with his own quip.
In fairness, I warned @VP that "you break it, you own it" https://t.co/X5ROcnDVCd
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) July 7, 2017
The Vice President’s social media team is apparently proficient at PhotoShop.
Okay…so this isn't exactly the first time this has happened. pic.twitter.com/6Y7b3UlJXe
— Vice President Mike Pence Archived (@VP45) July 7, 2017
In the end, NASA said that everything was going to be alright.
It was OK to touch the surface. Those are just day-to-day reminder signs. We were going to clean it anyway. It was an honor to host you! https://t.co/gu8zxknsJv
— NASA (@NASA) July 7, 2017
“Procedures require the hardware to be cleaned before tiles are bonded to the spacecraft, so touching the surface is okay,” NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs said. “Otherwise, the hardware would have had a protective cover over it like the thermal heat shield, which was nearby.”