Space Castaways by Clay Jones

It was only supposed to be a three-hour tour Read on Substack

You won’t get a long, thoughtful, in-depth, eloquent educational blog today (usually, just long) because I’m just having some fun. We also discussed this issue two days ago, so there’s really nothing to get outraged about here. Or is there?

When I wrote the last blog on this, someone left a comment (I don’t remember who but you can claim it) that the media needed to stop referring to the two astronauts with the extended stays on the International Space Station (ISS), as stranded.

I agree because they were not stranded. Even MAGAt Steve Kelley knows they weren’t “stranded” because if they were, then he would have drawn Superman saving them instead of kissing Elon’s ass. Superman knew the astronauts were safe, so he could focus on more important things, like saving Canada and Greenland from Trump.

This was not Apollo 13, where NASA had to figure out how to get the astronauts home. One of those astronauts was played by Tom Hanks in a film, who had also played a castaway in another movie. And it wasn’t like the film The Martian, when an astronaut was stranded on Mars, played by Matt Damon who also had to be rescued in Saving Private Ryan by Tom Hanks. Sonofabitch!
It’s also not like the other times Matt Damon had to be rescued, like in Interstellar, Courage Under Fire, Titan A.E., Elysium, Syrianna, or Green Zone. We need to tie Matt Damon to Ben Affleck so we’ll never have to rescue him again. We’re not lucky enough to lose Ben Affleck.

Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore were NOT stranded. Also, it’s not like being asked to work a weekend like in Office Space where if you don’t go, Bill Lumbergh’s going to call you all Saturday.

“Yeah, hi…it’s Bill Lumbergh calling again. Uhhhh, yeah…I just wanted to make sure you knew that we started…mmmm, yeah, at the usual time this morning at the….yeah…International Space Station. So…. if you could come on in….yeah…and bring those TPS reports with you…that would be great…uhhhh, also, it’s…yeah…Hawaiian shirt day.”

Most astronauts want to spend more time in space. They’re not Matt Damon.

Williams and Wilmore’s trip was extended because the spacecraft that took them to the ISS had safety issues, so their trip was extended. They were NOT alone on the ISS as other astronauts were there with them. Were they also stranded? No. There are seven astronauts on the International Space Station right now. There are three more on the Tiangong Space Station (space commies). None of them are stranded.

In case you’re a Republican, seven plus three is ten, meaning there are ten people in space right now.

In the case of Williams and Wilmore, NASA wasn’t trying to figure out how to get them home. They were trying to decide when and which craft. No one had to figure out how to get them home. They were picked up during the regular rotation of delivering and returning astronauts.

When you go to a bar and do the responsible thing and call an Uber to take you home, the Uber is not rescuing you (unless a Nickelback cover band is playing in the bar…and you’re sitting next to Ben Affleck, then you really are being rescued).

SpaceX is already contracted with NASA so it’s not like Elon came running to help from out of nowhere. NASA has contracts with other companies that deliver astronauts. Also, Elon didn’t volunteer to “rescue” these astronauts for free. Elon has been paid $13 billion by NASA over the past decade, and future payments will be higher.

While most readers will think this cartoon is just me having some fun, it’s also mocking all the fuckers who believe Elon rescued stranded astronauts.

And speaking of Gilligan, why can’t we lose Elon during a three-hour tour?

Music note: I listened to Van Halen, NOT Van Hagar.

Creative notes: I wrote this idea yesterday and saved it for today so I could draw the deportation cartoon, which I had been trying to do for a week. This cartoon, the second I’ve drawn today (the first was for the Advance which you’ll see tomorrow) took four hours.

Drawn in 30 seconds: (snip-go see it)