“At the direction of the President of the United States, it is the stated policy of this administration, and the United States of America, to return American astronauts to the moon within the next five years.”
—Vice President Mike Pence, March 26, 2019
The New York Timely
“New NASA Director Vows to Fulfill Moon Directive”
Mr. Wilcott Wessex, Jr., is leaving Congress next week to assume his new role as the Administrator of the National Aeronautics & Space Administration.
A former stockbroker who opposes science education in schools and believes that electricity is generated through prayer, Mr. Wessex seems to some to be an unlikely pick to run NASA.
“Bizarre beyond my ability to express it without using profanity,” is how one legislator phrased it.
The congressman’s nomination to this position was controversial, questions about his $100,000 donation to the planned presidential library-and-water-park in Palm Beach still remain unanswered, and the Senate voted along party lines to confirm his appointment.
(Memorably, one Senate aide was removed from the chamber at the conclusion of the vote, carried out by security personnel while screaming, “My God, people, what have you done?”)
The White House, however, has expressed “complete confidence” in Mr. Wessex, who has vowed to fulfill the administration’s goal, which was introduced during this president’s first term in office, to reach the moon (again) by 2024.
“To be clear,” the vice president memorably announced four years ago at a meeting of the National Space Council in Huntsville, Alabama, “the first woman and the next man on the moon will both be American astronauts, launched by American rockets from American soil.”
Since then, NASA’s efforts to realize the administration’s goal have been plagued by severe budget cuts, decreasing public approval ratings, and a high turnover rate. Wessex is this president’s fourth NASA administrator, if we don’t count any of the acting ones, or that strange twelve days last year when the president’s daughter was running the agency.
Outgoing NASA administrator Cliff Jefferson, best known for his star turn on the president’s former TV show, said in his final press conference, “I wish my successor the best of luck in trying to mount another manned mission to the moon, after all these years, with a depleted staff and a budget that would barely support a modest suburban dinner theater.” Jefferson has reportedly signed a book deal for a ghostwritten memoir about his interactions with the president over the years.
“Another manned mission?” Wessex shot back on social media. “There has never been a manned mission to the moon! Someone who doesn’t understand that had no business running NASA.”
Mr. Wessex has publicly stated his belief on numerous occasions that this country’s six manned moon landings, which took place in 1969 through 1972, were hoaxes.
“My NASA administration will be the first to land men on the moon!” Mr. Wessex declared, at a press conference he held shortly after his Senate confirmation.
When asked to comment on this, the president said, “Maybe he’s right. A lot of smart people are saying it. The fake media planted a fake story about a fake landing using fake astronauts.”
It should be noted that Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and all the other astronauts who’ve walked on the moon are real.
“Maybe the moon is fake, too,” the president added.
The moon is not fake.
Mr. Wessex leaves Congress only weeks after revelations that prosecutors are investigating him in matters of campaign finance violations, money laundering, and bank fraud. How those investigations will affect his tenure at NASA remains to be seen.
NASA Press Release
Today, less than three months after he commenced his work as NASA Administrator, former Congressman Wilcott Wessex, Jr., has departed involuntarily, removed from the building by federal agents. He is not expected to return.
But, just in case, NASA is changing all its security codes to make sure he can’t get back inside.
The Huffalong Post
“Mooning the Moon Mission”
Pharmaceuticals fortune heir, amateur race car driver, and recently-married presidential son-in-law Brett Moon has been named acting head of NASA, which has been without leadership (so to speak) since Wilcott Wessex was indicted two months ago.
“His name is Moon, so I thought he should be in charge of going to the moon,” said the president, when asked why he had chosen his son-in-law, who has no science background and no administrative experience, to run NASA until the next administrator is nominated and confirmed.
“This is so cool!” Moon enthused upon learning of his new role. “But, um, it won’t interfere with my racing, right?”
Meanwhile, there is no final report yet on precisely how much money the disgraced Wessex managed to divert from the space agency’s budget and into his offshore accounts during his short-lived career as NASA Administrator.
NASA’s CFO, still working with investigators, stated, “It appears to be a sum in the low-eight-figures range. Wessex thought no one would notice such a ‘modest’ sum disappearing, and that might have been a safe bet for him thirty years ago. But this presidential administration has cut our budget to such an extent that we search the couch cushions in the staff lounge for spare change, and encourage employees to bring their own light bulbs to work. So there wasn’t much chance that we wouldn’t quickly find out what Wessex was doing.”
The sum total of all felony charges recently filed against Wessex, a very rich man with many powerful friends, means that he could spend up to nine hundred years in prison.
“But more likely,” said a source at the Department of Justice, “he’ll get off with a modest fine and some community service.”
Meanwhile, Wessex’s pocket-picking rampage through NASA’s already depleted funding has severely hampered this administration’s pipe dream (“plans” doesn’t seem quite the mot juste) to land a man on the moon again. (It is “again,” despite Wessex’s various televised rants to the contrary.)
“We haven’t got the money, or the staff, or the time, needed to fulfill the administration’s directive,” said the head of the Manned Moon Mission team, who has submitted her resignation and intends to move “far, far away.”
“I really don’t see how we can get it done,” said NASA’s Deputy Administrator. “This is an immense project, we’re under-resourced and way behind schedule, and this administration only has about a year left in power. We’ve got to push back the deadline. The next manned moon landing (and, yes, it is the ‘next’ one, despite what Wessex kept ranting in the cafeteria) will have to be pushed back a few years.”
But delay does not accord with the administration’s plans.
“America’s first manned moon landing will take place while I am in office,” the president assured reporters who were permitted to follow him around a golf course this past weekend.
Advised by a reporter that it will not be the first manned moon landing, the president was visibly angry about being contradicted. “Why should we believe you, Miss Fake News Media?”
Asked how the mission goal can possibly be achieved, given the current circumstances, the president said, “Bretty’s a very smart guy. I have a feeling he’s gonna do a great job. If he can’t land the first man on the moon within a year, no one can.”
“Wow, this is epic,” said Moon, moved almost to tears by the president’s encomium. “Hey, Moon, here we come!”
However, the president’s glowing opinion of Brett Moon’s abilities is not widely shared. In fact, 627 sources interviewed for this article in Congress, at NASA, in the White House, and currently in federal prisons awaiting trial, all of whom asked to remain anonymous in order to speak candidly, characterized Moon as a feckless airhead who should never be left alone with matches, sharp objects, or shiny things.
“I’ve eaten overcooked vegetables that were more intelligent than the president’s son-in-law,” said one legislator.
“The guy spent years working on his party trick, which is licking his own left eyeball. So I guess you can’t say he’s never been committed to a goal.”
“Brett Moon,” said a former girlfriend, “gave venereal disease to me. And to all my friends. And to my stepmother.”
“Brett is supposed to save the moon mission? Seriously? Look, on the president’s orders, I’ve dealt with Brett before,” said a White House staffer. “I spent quite a bit of time with him. And I’m telling you, that guy couldn’t find his own ass with both hands and a compass so that he could moon the Moon.”
Live Coverage
White House Press Briefing
WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Okay, that’s it for announcements. I’ll take a few questions now.
LIVE CABLE NEWS: Why hasn’t there been a press briefing for seven months?
PRESS SECRETARY: Sit down!
LIVE CABLE NEWS: I am sitting.
PRESS SECRETARY: I can’t believe how mean you all are to me!
TELEVISION BROADCASTING COMPANY: Is it any wonder? You don’t answer your phone. You don’t return emails. You don’t hold briefings.
PRESS SECRETARY: You forget yourself, mortal!
LIVE CABLE NEWS: No one has ever seen you in direct sunlight, and there’s a rumor that you have no reflection when you pass in front of mirrors.
TELEVISION BROADCASTING COMPANY: Are you, in fact, undead?
PRESS SECRETARY: Does anyone else have a question?
SCIENCE TOMORROW: What is the status of the Manned Moon Mission since the president’s son-in-law resigned from NASA to devote himself full-time to his budding career as a runway model?
PRESS SECRETARY: Does anyone have a question I’d actually like to address?
TELEVISION BROADCASTING COMPANY: I’d like to follow up on the science nerd’s question. Moon was at NASA for, what, three hours?
WOLF NEWS: Brett Moon devoted six weeks of his life to the service of his country. When have you ever sacrificed yourself on the altar of patriotism the way that boy did, Fake Broadcasting Company?
HUFFALONG POST: Is it true that Mr. Moon spent his whole six weeks at NASA playing video games and sexually harassing women scientists?
[STAFFER approaches the podium and whispers in PRESS SECRETARY’S ear for half a minute, then departs.]
PRESS SECRETARY: I’ve just received word that the president, watching this briefing live on Wolf News, has authorized me to announce that in order to ensure that America lands the first man in history on the moon while he is still in office—
LIVE CABLE NEWS, HUFFALONG POST, SCIENCE TOMORROW, TELEVISION BROADCASTING COMPANY, & OTHERS: [in unison] It will not be the first.
PRESS SECRETARY: —he is going to take over leadership of the Manned Moon Mission.
HUFFALONG POST: Dare we hope this means he’s resigning from office?
PRESS SECRETARY: No, he can do both. Run the country and land the first man on the—
LIVE CABLE NEWS, HUFFALONG POST, SCIENCE TOMORROW, TELEVISION BROADCASTING COMPANY, & OTHERS: [in unison] It will not be the first.
SCIENCE TOMORROW: But being NASA Administrator is a very demanding—
PRESS SECRETARY: He’s not taking over NASA. He’s just going to lead the moon landing project.
LIVE CABLE NEWS: So, is he ever going to nominate a new NASA Administrator? Or name another acting admin? There hasn’t been anyone at the head of NASA since Brett Moon left. And that was months ago.
WOLF NEWS: Would you quit picking on that noble young American boy who gave his life for country?
HUFFALONG POST: Uh, Moon is still alive.
LIVE CABLE NEWS: And modeling metrosexual fashion in New York.
PRESS SECRETARY: The Manned Moon Mission is also alive! It will be headed by the president from now on. And the president doesn’t think we need another NASA Administrator.
LIVE CABLE NEWS: What?
TELEVISION BROADCASTING COMPANY: You can’t be serious!
SCIENCE TOMORROW: Oh, well. This administration has pretty much run NASA into the ground. Who could you get to take that job at this point, anyhow—unless the president has another idiot son-in-law lying around?
PRESS SECETARY: That’s a wrap.
The Hollywood Insider
“Moon: The Reality Show”
With the end of his second term now only weeks away, the president is determined to revive the Manned Moon Mission, which has endured more misfortunes than Scarlet O’Hara, and to land Americans on that astronomical body—even though it is by now clear it won’t happen while he’s still in office.
There is no further federal funding available for NASA, and there has been no leadership at the agency for quite some time, so NASA is winding down and will soon be shutting its doors. Rather than see the moon mission go down with the ship, as it were, the president is turning to a solution—and a venue—he knows well: reality TV.
It’s well known that the president has lately been mulling over ideas, both privately and publicly, about the best way to monetize his status after he leaves office.
“As the greatest former president in history,” he recently said, in a Wolf News interview, “I’m going to be a very hot commodity. Very hot. And I’m getting many offers. Many, many offers. I can pick and choose. Everybody wants me. No, I can’t tell you who. I can’t talk about the offers. They’re secret offers. But there are many, many offers. Believe me.”
Well, it seems the president may finally have found his sweetheart deal. He has announced plans to launch a new reality TV show upon leaving office, one that will revive the moon mission and, he says, capture a worldwide television audience of billions, making him the biggest TV star in history.
“I mean, my ratings as president have been good,” he said, in a rare interview with the Washington Postal, a publication with which he’s had a combative relationship for the past eight years. “I’ve had great ratings. No president’s show has ever been as popular as mine. You know that, right? But this new show! It’s gonna be just amazing. It’s gonna be crazy. Crazy, right? Amazing, amazing ratings. The best ever.”
The soon-to-be-former president’s new reality show will pit astronauts from the defunct space administration against popular celebrities, all of them competing to become “the first person ever to land on the moon.”
(Hollywood Insider contacted the White House for confirmation: “the first” is indeed the claim the president is making. More clarification may be needed.)
“We’ve got lots of private investors, and we’re buying up all rights to the moon,” the president told the Postal. “So, we’ll have exclusive use of that property for our show.”
The plan is that advertising revenue for the show will provide the funds needed to build and fuel the ship that will take the eventual winners of the contest to the moon.
“So, for the first season finale,” the president said, “we’re going to land the first men and women ever on the moon. I know people are saying it’s been done before, but that’s fake news. My show will be the first time anyone’s ever walked on the moon. And then the second year, we’ll do like a Survivor thing, only better, where someone gets voted off the moon every week.”
The long range plan, the president said, is to build some hotels on the moon and turn it into a luxury vacation destination.
Varietal
“Astrobody for Sale or Rent”
Assets are being sold off in an attempt to recoup at least a portion of the enormous sums that investors lost on the former president’s disastrous television venture, Moon: The Reality Show.
Despite the advantages of a massive publicity campaign for its launch, a former commander-in-chief as its host, and a premise that was unusual in the overcrowded reality TV market, Moon was a popular, critical, and financial failure from the start. The series was canceled halfway through its first season.
Theories abound about the exact reasons for the show’s quick demise.
Casting was one obvious problem. The fading D-list celebrities the production was able to attract generated almost no audience interest, and some of them actively repelled viewers. The former NASA astronauts who participated seemed so demoralized by their humiliating new lot in life that many viewers said they could no longer bear to witness their suffering. Nor did the ex-president wear well on TV audiences, who typically prefer former national leaders to retire to a life of good works and occasional speeches, rather than weekly goading and haranguing stressed-out TV contestants from his seat on a gold-plated toilet. (Once seen, this could never been unseen, alas.)
Declining ratings weren’t the only reason that advertisers soon started abandoning the show. There were so many grimace-worthy missteps in each episode that sponsors were practically besieged by whole swathes of the population demanding they withdraw their support from Moon.
The show’s financial and legal problems are legendary by now. Lawsuits and injunctions from all over the world quickly followed the president’s announcement, before the show even began filming, that the production had bought up all rights to the moon. This issue may well be in litigation until the next century.
The company also overspent lavishly on the show. The costly solid gold submarine was a particularly terrible idea—and one that initiated many more lawsuits, after the rescue operation was concluded.
When the series was suddenly canceled, contestants who were at the time miles below the ocean’s surface, or atop freezing mountain peaks with thin oxygen, or lost deep in bug-infested jungles . . . were all abandoned by the production company, left to find their own way back to safety and medical care. In consequence, most of them filed lawsuits against the company, and some are suing the president personally.
The gold submarine is lost for good, but a number of other assets survived production and are now available for purchase, in hopes that their sale might generate enough earnings to heal the worst of investors’ financial wounds.
The company is also attempting to sell their greatest asset, the one they purchased for billions of dollars: the moon. Sale of this astrobody, or any portion thereof, will be complicated, since multiple courts have yet to rule on the legality of the production company’s claim of ownership. For that reason, until such time as disposition of the property is legally clarified, the moon can be leased at a “reasonable rate.”
Transportation to and from the moon, of course, will be the responsibility of the customer.
