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“When you’re born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you’re born in America, you get a front-row seat.” – George Carlin
A lot of jibber-jabber has come spewing from the crusty lips of U.S. officials over the past few years about NASA taking another trip to the moon. Bum-bum-bum-bum. Yessirree, folks, the Trump Administration said back in 2019 that its goal was to put American space crawlers back on the lunar surface by 2024. Of course, the simple-minded, the Walmart shoppers, the COVID-deniers and the monkey cages of local zoos, all went buck wild. After all, there is no more accurate representation of Duh ‘Merican Way than moonwalking before the foreigners, am I right?
To some of the population, the creation of a Space Force with plans to touch the moon again sounded like the right move for the United States of America, and the patriots raised their flags in celebration. To others, like myself, we couldn’t help but notice the lingering stench of a conspiratorial past. We felt the news was a rotten attempt to bamboozle the American public once again. Naturally, we had questions. The first was why it was taking so long to go back in the first place? If the United States could land on the moon in 1969 — defying the technological intelligence of the time — then why in hell’s holy name was it going to take four more years to do it again?
Perhaps because we never did it in the first place.
Many solid theories have come out over the years explaining why it is unlikely that the famed Apollo 11 mission ever made it to the moon. Even engineers like Bill Kaysing, who was part of the space program back then, have said that it is highly improbable that NASA ever achieved this. Some believe the moon landing was just a vast Hollywood production made to fool the American people into thinking about the strength of their country at a time when communism was considered a threat. All the government had to do was show the masses something neat on television, and that was that – it happened. At least most of them would be naive enough to believe it.
The truth is that the Americans had to beat the Russians to the moon to save face, and the history books tell us we did. But if the United States actually accomplished this feat some 50 years ago, did the new Artemis mission really need four years to go back? Naysayers and conspiracy theorists were skeptical, as always, yet patiently, we waited for them to prove us wrong. Well, NASA proved something to us alright – that they are still full of crap. It turns out that the planned lunar operation known as Artemis was probably just another long con. NASA officials are now conveniently blaming the coronavirus for chumping out on its long-awaited lunar return.
NASA quietly published a report this week, presumably hoping that the news would get buried under the madness of the apocalyptic holiday travel season, suggesting that the hyped-up Artemis moon mission slated for 2024 is no longer happening. It also added that any pipe dreams of visiting Mars in the near future, well, those plans have been kicked to the curb as well.
Doing its best to mask its incompetence through a lot of statistics and a few on-the-ground successes, the agency blames the bureaucratic swindlers in control of the mighty governmental machine for the setback. It claims not to have the money, emotional support, or anything else it needs to make another giant leap for mankind. So if you were hoping to witness a moon landing soon, sorry, pal.
For now, America is grounded.
“We believe the agency will be hard-pressed to land astronauts on the moon by the end of 2024,” the report reads. “At the very least, achieving any date close to this ambitious goal — and reaching Mars in the 2030s — will require strong, consistent, sustained leadership from the president, Congress and NASA, as well as stable and timely funding. Over the past decade, our oversight work has found NASA consistently struggling to address each of these significant issues, and the Artemis mission’s accelerated timetable will likely further exacerbate these challenges,” the report added.
But just in case the American people don’t buy into NASA’s excuses, the agency claims COVID-19 is more or less the real reason the Artemis mission is ruined. “Because it has permeated every aspect of NASA’s operations, the effects of COVID‐19 is a theme repeated in many of the top challenges,” the report stated. “NASA has had to prioritize which missions would continue and which would be delayed.”
Oh, Artemis Fartemis!
So how long will it take the United States to finally make it to the moon? Well, NASA says the price tag for such an endeavor will run every penny of the proposed $28 billion budget. I believe that a large chunk of these funds is required to develop technology that will allow astronauts to survive the Van Allen radiation belts and perhaps establish communication that is guaranteed not to cut out hundreds of thousands of miles (240,000) from the nearest AT&T cell tower. When your smartphone drops signal today, stop and think about how NASA was supposedly able to communicate with the astronauts of the 1960s using glorified walkie-talkies. Meanwhile, cell phones don’t even work on the International Space Station (ISS), and it’s only 200 miles above Earth. And nobody on this planet can use modern technology to phone the ISS. Yet NASA wants us to believe that old Buzz Aldrin and crew came through crystal clear from the moon surface!
(Insert fart noise here)