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You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Late Night Side-Eye Open Thread — Trump to NASA: “To the MOON, Alice!”

Late Night Side-Eye Open Thread — Trump to NASA: “To the MOON, Alice!”

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I was too young for the Honeymooners, but I’ve read that in 1956, young Donald Trump was trying to buy friends with the lure of his parents’ still-novel rec-room television. So, yeah, hurrah for a new Space Age, but given Trump’s hostility to science in general, my first thought was of Trump shouting out Ralph Kramden’s (futile, bootless) threat… which is still enough of a popular catchphrase to have its own entry in the Urban Dictionary…

President Donald Trump signed Space Policy Directive 1 on Monday, directing NASA to return Americans to the surface of the moon and onward to Mars.

The order declares NASA must lead U.S. astronauts in “an innovative space exploration program.” The announcement continues the White House push to end dependence on Russia for manned launches, which began when the space shuttle program retired six years ago.

“It marks an important step in returning American astronauts to the moon for the first time since 1972 for long-term exploration and use,” Trump said during the signing. “This time we will not only plant our flag and leave our footprint. We will establish a foundation for an eventual mission to Mars and, perhaps, someday, to many worlds beyond.”

It has been 45 years to the day since Apollo 17 landed, the most recent mission to the moon…

Video of Trump’s full speech here:

… “We are the leader and we’re going to stay the leader, and we’re going to increase it many fold,” Trump said in signing “Space Policy Directive 1” that establishes a foundation for a mission to the moon with an eye on going to Mars.

“This time, we will not only plant our flag and leave our footprint, we will establish a foundation for an eventual mission to Mars,” Trump said. “And perhaps, someday, to many worlds beyond.”

Back in June, China’s space official said the country was making “preliminary” preparations to send a man to the moon, the latest goal in China’s ambitious lunar exploration program.

Trump’s signing ceremony for the directive included former lunar astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Harrison Schmitt and current astronaut Peggy Whitson, whose 665 days in orbit is more time in space than any other American and any other woman worldwide…

“And space has so much to do with so many other applications, including a military application,” he said without elaboration.

In approving the new policy, Trump abandoned what had been a goal of his predecessor, Democrat Barack Obama, who in 2010 backed a plan to send humans to a near-earth asteroid.

NASA said initial funding for the new policy would be included in its budget request for fiscal year 2019…

Funding yesterday and funding tomorrow, but never funding today.

On the ‘job creation’ side, maybe O.J. Simpson can reprise his role…

Reader Interactions

67Comments

  3. 3.

    Peale

    This again. Add it to the fabled 600 ship navy, the border wall, 200,000 ICE agents to the things that the GOP tells their voters they’ll do but won’t actually fund.

  4. 4.

    efgoldman

    Henna Hairball has no idea what congress will fund this adventure, but it won’t be the current one.

  7. 7.

    Mnemosyne

    It was a lot quicker to get the whole sleep apnea home testing thing picked up than I thought it would. Now I have to figure out how to prevent the cat from biting through the tubing in the middle of the night. ? I’ll probably have to put everything on and then put my pajama top over it.

  11. 11.

    Amir Khalid

    And of course he said nothing specific about why America needs people on the moon. Or Mars. Because he doesn’t understand that while exploration per se is worthwhile, there need to be scientific and technological goals to justify the resource devoted to it. Or that military applications i.e. finding new ways to kill more people dead, should never be among those goals.

  12. 12.

    jl

    I didn’t know ‘Bam, Zoom, Straight to the Moon’ refers specifically tot wife-beating. I thought it was just about getting really angry.. But then i was just a little kid watching old re-runs on the TV.

    Since open thread, more problems for GOP due to having 6000 lobbyists scribble stuff on a paper copy of their Senate tax bill a couple of hours before they passed it.

    The Taxman Cometh: Senate Bill’s Marginal Rates Could Top 100% for Some: Certain high-income business owners would face backwards incentives; lawmakers work to bridge gap
    WSJ, By Richard Rubin
    Updated Dec. 10, 2017

    ” WASHINGTON—Some high-income business owners could face marginal tax rates exceeding 100% under the Senate’s tax bill, far beyond the listed rates in the Republican plan.

    That means a business owner’s next $100 in earnings, under certain circumstances, would require paying more than $100 in additional federal and state taxes. ”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-taxman-cometh-senate-bills-marginal-rates-could-top-100-for-some-1512942118

    Edit: found the link in Paul Krugman’s twitter feed earlier today.

    Edit2: OTOH, given the Trumpsters and apparently Congressional GOP penchant for betraying anyone in their own base who is not already super rich, was it a mistake? Maybe it was a plan to raise some dough off the dupes.

  13. 13.

    Anne Laurie

    I didn’t know ‘Bam, Zoom, Straight to the Moon’ refers specifically tot wife-beating. I thought it was just about getting really angry..

    The “fun” part of the “joke” was that Ralph was forever threatening his wife (or his best friend, IIRC) with violence, but he wasn’t actually capable of carrying through his threats. The character was a would-be alpha male posturing vainly in a world full of smarter, faster, more powerful entities. Much of the humor also relied on Gleason being a big, fat, overbearing male with surprisingly dandy-ish (bad) taste in dress… sorta like, y’know, Tang the Conqueror.

  14. 14.

    jl

    @Amir Khalid: I read “an innovative space exploration program.” and first thing I asked was where are they going to get the money for this? Maybe they will make NASA contract it out to some scamster corporation. I guess then there will be money.

    Then lower down, is the comment that suggest Trump wants to militarize the moon. That would be great. Actually, I wonder how monumentally inefficient and stupid that would be, besides dangerous and monstrous. But I don’t know, i’m not a space military expert.

  16. 16.

    NotMax

    “How much more could it be to include a backhoe to etch my last name on the Moon, big enough to be seen from here?”

  17. 17.

    jl

    @Anne Laurie: That makes sense. I got that part of the joke even as a little kid. I guess I was too young and naive to think he would hit her. But the joke was that his threats were empty.

    What I really didn’t know was that the meaning was specifically tied to the threat of wife beating. So, now seems an ugly joke line out of context.

  19. 19.

    ZyklonBeaArthur

    I know I shouldn’t be commenting when I feel this negative but Jesus tap-dancing Christ would it kill Democrats to speak up about this shit?

    Why isn’t anyone pointing out that the Republicans are gambling we’ll be back in power in 2018 so they can blame us for killing the funding?

    And why aren’t Democrats talking about the fact that the bogus voter commission wants all voter data in one place to make it easier for the Russians to steal?

    Every time I saw a Dem representative or senator in the media last week they were shivving Al Franken—because a handful of bogus allegations against one of their own was clearly the most important thing going on at the moment.

    I’m calling it now—if Kirsten Gillibrand runs in 2020 the republicans will launch a smear campaign against her husband and then scream when/if she doesn’t hold herself to the same standards as Al Franken and drop out of the race.

  21. 21.

    Jay S

    @jl: Money, who needs money for innovation? We’ll just run a skunk works project. That guy with the steam powered rocket would be great for this. Flat earth proof and Moon marines all in the same package.

  22. 22.

    jl

    @Jay S: Maybe SCOTUS will eventually rule the 2nd amendment means I have the right for moon rocket base for self-protection? If I ever become a multi-quadrillionaire, that might come in handy. At least the kids won’t be able to get at it.

  23. 23.

    jl

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Well, it’s going to hit affluent, but not rich, business owners, people who do actual real things in the real world. From reading the article, the Mercer, Walton, Adelson kids, Paris Hiltons, and Koch brothers of the world have nothing to worry about.

    Anyway, that GOP tax bill, is going to wonders for productivity and investment. You can just hear the growth coming around the bend.

  28. 28.

    Amir Khalid

    I don’t see this order going anywhere for the same reasons, as far as militarising space is concerned. Can you picture the DoD putting together a plan for it that wasn’t obviously ridiculous? Who is the US going to be fighting out there? The Obama administration had it right when they explained why building a Death Star was not a good idea.

  30. 30.

    scav

    Revisiting the glory projects of George W Bush now? I mean, his boots should be on the moondust in 2020, and didn’t his even involve a modicum of funding?

  31. 31.

    Ruckus

    I bet if we hold a contest for the first person to be shot to the moon, if he’d be sent within the next 30 days would be……. drumpf hisself. Could we get a GoFuckYou started to pay for it? Bet we’d have enough in less than a week. One of the Apollo units is in the Wright Patterson museum. There’s got to be a spare Atlas 5 hanging around somewhere.

  33. 33.

    Jay S

    @Ruckus: To the moon Donald! Who would fill out the rest of the crew? Pence and Ryan would be nice, but I expect they would be held back. Who else should fly?

  37. 37.

    LesGS

    @Mnemosyne: Yeah. My cat has on occasion let me know it’s time to get up and give him breakfast by biting either my APAC machine’s hose or even the nose “pillows.” The latter is rather alarming, ‘cuz my nose is *right there*!

  41. 41.

    fuckwit

    Shrub did the same con job.

    Sent NASA orders to land people on Mars. PR stunt, basically.

    More likely, Troll is worried that India is very close to landing people on the moon.

    Or he’s worried that Bitcoin will go to the moon first.

  42. 42.

    Jay S

    @Major Major Major Major: Yeah I thought you had a cat infection, so I was snarking too. I assume your cat is accustomed to being shut out, trying that with one that isn;t on a night when you are trying to monitor sleep is probably not the best choice.

  44. 44.

    Ruckus

    @Jay S:
    What rest of the crew? He’d be the bestest spaceman ever. I wouldn’t mind if the landing was a bit fast and rough, would you? I’m thinking a direct flight. This really should be “To the moon, donny boy!”
    @NotMax:
    Who gives a shit what powers him, as long as he gets there. You may have noticed that I don’t want him back. Just in case you wondered. In that vein I think we could just strap him that Saturn fucking V and stand back and light the fuse. Why waste a good historical space capsule?

  46. 46.

    Anne Laurie

    @Jay S:

    Have you now or ever had a cat? Scratching at a closed door can really mess with your sleep.

    Our cats get ejected from the bedroom when the Spousal Unit is ready to fall asleep, because he has trouble getting back to sleep if he’s roused (& of course cats can’t resist waking up protesting humans). We have a safety gate (aka baby gate) that can be closed *just* outside the bedroom door, since the plastic-wire mesh is not a good scratching surface. Our cats have always picked up pretty quickly that ‘closed gate = no entry’… although our Meezer-gene red tabby Rocket will occasionally sit on the wrong side of the gate & yowl at us in protest. (Spousal Unit sleeps on the side away from the door, so he can’t hear the cat-swears over the white noise generator.)

  48. 48.

    Anne Laurie

    @Major Major Major Major: Just as with Bad Dogs, at least 80% of Problem Cats are those living with… let’s say, humans who have their own boundary issues.

    They’re (varyingly) intelligent entities with their own needs & drives. Getting confused about what a cat ‘needs’ or ‘wants’ by confusing the poor beast for either a robot or your spirit anima is bad news for both parties.

    To use the worst-case scenario, the cat needs to know — worse comes to worst — the human will put on the chainmail gloves and stuff cat into carrier. Doesn’t mean you want to break their fighting spirit, but if there’s an emergency evacuation (*cough* wildfire *cough*), you won’t always be given half an hour to lure Pussums out from under the bed with the special treats.

    We have lived with ‘shadow cats’, rescued ferals who really couldn’t be handled without overnight preparations in advance, slowly funnelling them from their usual basement safe space into a bathroom with a door where they could be enticed/herded into a carrier. The one time it looked like we’d be ordered to evacuate (tanker full of chemicals overturned on the exit ramp just behind our back yard), we had to pop open a basement window & hope for the best. Yes, I *really, seriously* would discourage the average person sharing space with the average cat not to be reduced to this!

  49. 49.

    Jay S

    @Major Major Major Major: We’ve done that with the sewing room but not overnight. The bathroom would not work for us for several reasons. As long as there’s no chance the room is opened until it doesn’t matter it’s probably less traumatic.

  52. 52.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Jay S: Samwise is assumed to have free roam of the bathroom, living room, and kitchen. Sometimes he’s in the bedroom but only when we’re home. So his accustomed range is the kitchen, living room, and bathroom. If we’re cooking with raw meat we usually close the kitchen door, which he isn’t happy about. The bathroom is only for emergencies, it’s very upsetting to the poor dear, but at least he has his litter box.

  54. 54.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Mnemosyne:

    So here’s a bleg — has anyone ever done an at-home sleep study for sleep apnea? Any tips? My appointment is in about 90 minutes — yes, at night. It’s weird.

    I’m assuming you’ve discovered it’s a not a big deal. I did one this summer — out of pocket, because the insurance company refused to even cover an at-home study since I’d be previously diagnosed over a decade before. Despite the sleep doctor arguing it would be good to redo the test to see if things had changed. Bastards….

    Anyway, as I’m sure they’ve told you, the biggest thing is to make sure the recording unit is actually recording. Otherwise you’ll need to do it for another night.

    FWIW, they had me do a two-night study, and the first night showed about 50% more apnea episodes than the second. Best guess was that I had more difficulty adjusting to being without my CPAP machine the first night. Moral of the tale, if anything seems a bit weird in the results, it’s worth asking to do an additional night of testing.

  55. 55.

    ThresherK

    @NotMax: The Papermill Playhouse? I have no idea if you’re near it, but I’ve read a bit about them. It’s too far from my home for a fun little jaunt.

    Are they known for birthing shows that make it to Broadway?

  56. 56.

    Anne Laurie

    @Jay S: Sorry! Nope, I was agreeing with you guys — it not only doesn’t *hurt* cats to know they’ve got boundaries, even if they don’t fully understand our gross human logic, it’s a safety measure for both parties.

    I don’t want other people to be in a situation where they have to leave a feline housemate behind because it’s impossible to get them into a carrier in an emergency.

    I don’t even want innocent bystanders not to have the joy of cats in their homes, because they’ve been mislead by idiots bragging that “You can’t teach cats anything, they’re so independent” or “My Pussums has me wrapped around his little paw, which is why I can’t go out in the evenings/take care of my own health/have other people visit me.”

    We fill the kibble dish on demand, open a can of wet fud every night, and clean out the litter box. Least our feline housemates can do is accept they can’t be in the bedroom when we’re sleeping, even if we do let the dogs sleep with us!

  57. 57.

    J R in WV

    @jl:

    Also a big part of the joke was that Alice was in charge of everything in Ralph’s life but his mouth. and everyone in the show’s world knew that. Even Ralph!!

  58. 58.

    NotMax

    @ThresherK

    You’re almost surely closer, as they’re in NJ and I’m in HI. ;)

    Anyhoo, the limited premiere run there ended late in October. No particular insight otherwise, however the reviews suggest the show will be taking a break for doctoring and tinkering.

  60. 60.

    Procopius

    I was always angered by the high level decisions at NASA to abandon eventual space colonization. If you make up your mind that something is impossible, of course you’re not going to be able to do it. I still believe in the 1950s dream of mining the asteroid belt and gathering hydrocarbons from Jupiter’s atmosphere, and a base on the moon would be a significant first step. Sure, it will be expensive, but I believe it would have a much greater long-term pay-off than trying to get the minerals that are supposed to be in Afghanistan.

  64. 64.

    gvg

    @Procopius: Sigh…NASA really does know more about physics and engineering. Mining the asteroids COSTS serious money and energy for what minerals? We don’t know where much is and everything there is already in earth. No where on earth no matter how dangerous politically is as hard to get something from as space. then once you have found something worth something, you have to bring it back to earth without it burning up on reentry which is also hard. It’s like spending a million bucks for a gallon of milk.
    NASA did not abandon learning stuff in space. It does have funding issues like all government agencies at this time due to a bunch of yahoos who think they can have something for nothing (libertarians and drown government in a bathtub anti tax nuts)

  65. 65.

    Mnemosyne

    @Anne Laurie:

    FWIW, Charlotte saw the tubing on my face, went oh, shit, she’s being attacked by a facehugger! and booked out of the room after a perfunctory snuggle. It was probably the monitor on my finger that freaked her out most.

    Putting the majority of the tubing under my top was still the right decision because it was pretty long and that prevented both G and me from accidentally rolling over on top of it.

  66. 66.

    mike shupp

    @Procopius: There wasn’t any high level decision at NASA to abandon space colonization. There wasn’t any high level decision at NASA before that to start colonization. Such a program would cost a great deal of money and time and effort — it’d have to be approved by most nations in the United Nations, for instance; it’d take up as much engineering and scientific manpower as a major DoD program, for another.

    Get the idea? We don’t let unelected civil servants make such decisions. They have to come from Congress or the White House, and sixty years of experience shows AMERICAN POLITICIANS DO NOT WANT SPACE COLONIZATION.

    Guess what? Neither do British politicians, or Germans, or French, or Japanese, or Spanish, or Indonesian, or … very likely neither do Chinese and Russian politicians. Governments everywhere have extensive social welfare programs to fund, Space programs are moderately expensive, in fact — something like Apollo would cost $150-200 billion in current dollars. They are exceptionally expensive in imagination — when polled, Americans often guesstimate that NASA costs one quarter of the Federal budget. As a consequence, noticeable increases in space programs infuriate large numbers of voters. Granted, politicians like Senator Shelby can wave a hand at Marshall Space Flight Center and talk about the fine dedicated Alabamans who work for our great nation, but he’s promoting a jobs program, not something akin to trains of Conestoga wagons creaking in dirt trails across the continent.

  67. 67.

    mike shupp

    @gvg:

    You might want to look at my #66 comment here. Carrying on . . .

    It’s not likely governments are going to lead (or push) humanity into outer space, so the job is going to fall on corporations or other non-government entities (don’t laugh — we’ve got Linux and Wikipedia and Kickstarter and other examples, to show that voluntary associations of people, drawn from large enough populations, can accomplish great tasks. And the “population” of internet users is still growing.),

    However, extensive space programs aren’t going to happen unless there’s enough income to sustain them. Corporations want to make profits, and that entails selling something to someone. Space buffs have been apt to wave their hands and scream about tourists for close to a generation; I’m skeptical — barnstorming in aeroplanes used to be a thing, but I don’t know of anyone who claims that really advanced general aviation. Mining Helium-3 and platinum group metals on the Moon have been proposed, but seem a little “iffy.”

    What’s actually logical for corporations to provide are space-produced materials — water and oxygen and iron and silicate panels, etc. — obtained by mining the moon and convenient asteroids. refining the ore, and perhaps doing some simple fabrication by 3-D printing. The customers for these products would be other space-based entities — maybe human colonies, maybe swarms of robots — so the transportation costs would be comparatively. E.g., instead of shipping water, at a cost of 10 cents per gallon, to the Moon for $10,000 per kilogram, the Blue Horizons Corporation might someday sell waterby the ton to Elon Musk City in Copernicus crater for $100 per kilogram. Money-making for Blue Horizons, money saving for Musk City.

    One can even imagine an economic system based on such activity. The hard part is getting things off the ground — Elon Musk City might eventually pay for itself, with residents and corporate entities earning income from outside sources that equals the payments to other outside entities, but in the near term, it’s going to be a sink for capital, and one might expect that a lot of investments in it are going to turn belly up.

    Space colonies won’t be profitable from the start, in other words. And even when they are, they’ll face certain problems. If I were writing a story about a city on the Moon twenty years ago, I might have tossed in meteor strikes as a possible danger, or maybe even moonquakes. Suggestions of piracy and sabotage would have made me snort my morning coffee out my nose. Today … the occasional wayward nanosat missile from Al Queda, threats of ICBM strikes by North Korea, computer hacking by unidentified earthlings, local breakage and sabotage by adherents of Hezbollah or the KKK … all have to be considered.

    Part of getting space colonies successful would seem to be getting them really seperate from Earth!

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