In his syndicated column, James Lileks raises some entirely tongue-in-space helmet concerns about NASA’s proposal to implement Frank J’s Realistic Plan For World Peace:
In another baseless act of unjustified aggression, the United States has announced plans to launch an attack on the moon.
NASA says it will crash a rocket into innocent Luna in 2009, looking for water. It will hit the poor rock so hard that we will see the explosion here on Earth. Good Lord, why not put Pennzoil stickers on the rocket for that NASCAR touch, and launch the strike when the moon’s in a crescent phase so we can infuriate the Muslim world?
This is so typical. So American. We’re not content destroying this planet — we have to go out of our way to ruin the moon with phallic-shaped devices. Why don’t we drill for oil in the pristine Venusian swamps while we’re at it? Sure, it’s a barren, poisonous deathscape — but a decent nation would spend billions to put caribou on another planet, just to make sure it’s never exploited for its natural resources.
If you’re not spending sleepless nights worrying whether the batteries on our Martian rovers may leak and contaminate the water we think we found, you’re just not paying attention.
To return to the immediate crisis: Why the moon? Lunarians were not involved in 9/11. Don’t tell me: That’s where Saddam hid the WMD, or got some yellowcake. In any case, it’s a distraction from the failing economy, what with jobless rates hitting a new low … no, that’s not it. It’s a distraction from the American casualties in Iraq, which have been falling for five straight months … hold on, we’ll get it.
Ah! It’s a cover for the United States’ devious plans, revealed by super-patriot Seymour Hersh, to nuke Iran. The anti-moon missile goes up, falls on Iran, we say “my bad,” and that’s the end of that chapter.
Listen up: If George W. Bush wants to go to the moon, then going to the moon is wrong. The MOON is wrong.
Hey, he wouldn’t be the first person to come to that conclusion.
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