Obama Revives Space Program to Shut Down National Park on the Moon

The space program, which had been mothballed after the 2008 election, received an unexpected shot in the arm from the government shutdown with an emergency mission to the moon.

After his victory, Obama had shut down planned missions to the moon and mars, and shut down the space shuttle and the replacement space vehicle for it.

But a recent bill by two Congressional Black Caucus members to establish a National Park on the lunar landing site created an urgent need to immediately shut down the Apollo Lunar Landing National Historic Park before anyone could actually visit it.

"The government is shut down. All 17 percent of it," said National Park Service spokeswoman Sequoia Jackson. "We've barricaded national monuments and the ocean. We evicted restaurants and homeowners living on Federal land. We don't know how else to get the message across that the government is shut down and there is no money except by launching an emergency 2 trillion dollar mission to plant barricades on the moon."

The crash program to reach the moon before the shutdown ends and plant barackades on it has already begun. Four non-essential furloughed Federal workers, selected for their diversity of races, sexual orientations and gender identities, underwent rapid weightlessness training in the back of a UPS truck hurtling down the hill to make a rush delivery.

Despite the government shutdown, Tesla Industries was given an immediate 2 trillion dollar contract to construct a space vehicle by the end of the weekend. Government spokesmen denied that the contract had anything to do with its founder and CEO's generous donations to Obama.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled plans for the NPS Barackade this afternoon. The plans were drawn in crayon on a TGI Friday's placemat, but look no less impressive for that.

"The NPS Starship Barackade will have twelve Green engines powered by piles of recycled laptop batteries," Musk told reporters while nibbling on an egg and cheese sandwich. "It will recycle its wastes. Its outer skin is made of recycled aluminum from all the Tesla cars that burned up. Its rocket booster is powered by the recorded screams by Al Gore and Howard Dean. Its navigation system is lifted from a driving App we found at the App Store."

But will it fly? That's the question.

The plan is to have the NPS Barackade pass around the moon, swing down into lunar orbit and then begin a sharp descent over the Sea of Tranquility. The Barackade's crew will then deploy barricades around the site of the original Apollo 11 landing blocking out the view of the flag. A 100 foot white sheet will be fastened over the barricades to prevent views from above.

The sheet will read in letters large enough to be seen by the telescope of the Mauna Kea Observatories. "The Moon is closed due to the Shutdown of the Federal Government. Come back later."

The four members of the NPS Barackade Crew were introduced at a press conference held just outside the barricades of NASA HQ.

Mananda Jones, a biracial bisexual postal worker fired for stealing postage stamps who then successfully sued for discrimination.

Lucy Whitlock, born Lucien, a transgender man, who joined the National Park Service to help bears get in touch with their gay identity and underwent extensive reconstructive surgery and a gender change after repeated maulings.

Bert Rogby, a member of the EPA's SWAT Team Cypress 16 that had personally brought down a man who spit on the sidewalk in Seattle, before being furloughed.

Abdul Hassan Mohammed, NASA's Chief of the Division of Muslim Self-Esteem who had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for convincing a Muslim suicide bomber planning to bomb an airline that Muslims had invented planes. And barf bags.

"This is the most diverse space crew outside television," Attorney General Eric Holder said, after filing fourteen lawsuits in four hours against all the original crewmembers due to their lack of diversity. "If gravity interferes in any way with their launch, it will be considered a hate crime... and we will prosecute physics."

"Our goal is simple," said National Park Service Space Division chief Malik Edwards. "We're gonna land on the moon. We're gonna Barackade the moon to let everyone know the moon is closed. It's gonna be a real inspiration to the youth."

Responding to questions about where the 2 trillion dollars for the moon shutdown would come from, Obama dismissed the question. "Spending 2 trillion dollars to shut down the moon is actually going to shrink our national debt. And our deficit."

Attempts to verify that math were aborted when a Park Ranger grabbed the calculator, stomped on it and declared that math had been shut down.

The NPS Barackade launches tomorrow from a gantry of barricades that it will carry up with it to the moon. But Obama has already recorded his speech for the launch.

"Two-hundred years ago, President John F. Kennedy said, 'Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.' These brave Federal workers traveling into the uncharted depths of space have chosen to ask the opposite question. Ask not what they can do for their country or why they even have jobs. Ask how you can give them another raise."

"Today they are faring forth heroically to shut down the moon, the way that their ancestors set sail in the Mayflower to shut down Plymouth Rock and crossed the Oregon Trail to shut down California.

"Tomorrow, we may go outward to shut down Mars or Jupiter. And beyond, centuries hence, brave Federal workers will fly starships to shut down Alpha Centauri or the Andromeda galaxy. They will fly into black holes to shut them down and put up barricades around pulsars so that when aliens come billions of years from now after the human race has long been extinct, they will know that the Federal government is still shut down.

"I see the bright faces of young people out there watching this and thinking to themselves that if a bunch of useless idiots who spent their whole lives implementing regulations and smoking in the stairwell can try and fail to go to the moon, they too can get jobs in which they do nothing all day until the government decides to launch them on a suicide mission into space.

"I see in them the hopes and aspirations of a young woman from Kansas and a young polygamist from Kenya who aspired to shut down America.

"Their wishes came true through a young boy growing up in Hawaii who succeeded in realizing their dream. As these four idiots launch into space and die screaming because their air revitalization system consists of a used air conditioner from Tesla's second floor and they have no air, let us pay tribute to the adventurers and explorers who dream big.

"Who dream of shutting down Mount Rushmore and shutting down the Grand Canyon. Who dream of shutting down the rivers and oceans. Who dream of shutting down America.

"Obamaspeed, Abdul Hassan Mohammed. Obamaspeed."