You could send Congress to space.
— Senator Ted Cruz, March 21, 2017
The NASA authorisation bill was another Trump huff and puff show, brimming with the usual air of minted if misplaced confidence. “My fellow Americans, this week in the company of astronauts I was honoured to sign the NASA Transition Authorization Act right into law.”
The bill was meant to “renew our national commitment to NASA’s mission of exploration and discovery, and we continue a tradition that is as old as mankind. We look to the heavens with wonder and curiosity.” Ever hackneyed, always banal, and fastidiously clichéd – Trump’s touch of the reality show cannot be faulted on that level. The heavens may be gazed at, but what matters in Trumpland are earthbound desires fuelled by conventional concerns for finance and what sells.
Packaging is all in such promotional endeavours, even if it supposedly entails the same gift that has been provided for years. “The bill will make sure that NASA’s most important and effective programs are sustained and orders NASA to continue… transitioning activities to the commercial sector where we have seen great progress.”
Delivered over YouTube, the video featured the Apollo 11 moon landing and that interplanetary conquistador, Neil Armstrong, taking his “one small step” for a US-led mankind. Naturally, celebrations subsequent to gracing the lunar crust were also incorporated.
The Trump bonanza also reflected in his words…