In retrospect it's insane that we ever thought 'space crime' would be cool s*** like starship piracy and comet smuggling. Turns out it's just a new frontier for financial crime and that's why Musk, Bezos et al are all desperate to get there first. https://t.co/3RMPqtPu1T
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) August 25, 2019
Good quip, but of course it’s not really about money. Where there are primates, there are sexual relationships; and where there are sexual relationships, there are messy breakups, with the related financial complications. This is certainly not the first relationship to be broken by the rigors of astronautical travel, and I personally suspect it’s not even the first one involving accusations of related financial impropriety:
… Astronaut Anne McClain is accused of identity theft and improperly accessing her estranged wife’s private financial records while on a sixth-month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS), the Times said.
The astronaut’s spouse Summer Worden filed a complaint earlier this year with the Federal Trade Commission after learning McClain had accessed her bank account without permission, while Worden’s family filed another with NASA’s Office of Inspector General, according to the newspaper.
McClain’s lawyer said the astronaut had done nothing wrong and accessed the bank records while aboard the ISS in order to monitor the couple’s combined finances — something she had done over the course of their relationship, the Times reported…
McClain, who returned to Earth in June, gained fame for being one of two women picked for a historic all-female spacewalk, but NASA scrapped the planned walk in March due to a lack of well-fitting spacesuits, sparking accusations of sexism…
Of course, IMO the Musk / Bezos et al rocketeering isn’t really about finance, either: Those guys are the tech-advantaged version of Jane Goodall’s Gombe Mike, the chimp who discovered he could compensate for his relatively puny physique by banging around empty oil drums to make a REALLY BIG NOISE…
Late Night Open Thread: <em>Space Crime!</em>Post + Comments (13)