Editing 1456: On the Moon

{{comic
| number    = 1456
| date      = December 5, 2014
| title     = On the Moon
| image     = on_the_moon.png
| titletext = "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on Venus and returning him safely to--" [an aide frantically whispers in the president's ear for a moment] "... of landing a man on Venus."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Check for completeness.}}
The phrase "If we can land a man on the Moon, why can't we <blank>" is commonly used to question a perceived shortcoming of some company, government or humanity in general. The premise is that "we" (where we is usually a generalized blanket identification of humanity, or the United States) have been able to achieve the extraordinary feat of landing men on the Moon and bringing them back to Earth safely; thus our inability to achieve some lesser goal is questionable.

The {{w|Moon landing}}s are rightly seen as one of the pinnacles of humanity's achievements, and as such have become an accomplishment against which all other great feats are measured. That technology available in 1969 was so minimal in comparison to modern technology serves only to increase the status of the Moon landings.

Here, Megan is cutting Cueball's argument's short by reminding him that humanity has not put another man on the Moon since the end of the Apollo program in December 1972, and that new manned programs to return to the Moon, such as the US Constellation Program, have been repeatedly cancelled.

This comic may well be a response to NASA's [http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/december/orion-flight-test-nasa-tv-coverage-reset-for-friday-dec-5/ postponed attempt to launch] a test of the Orion spacecraft on Thursday 4th December 2014. The unmanned test flight which aims to orbit Earth twice, travelling 5800 km into space, had to be delayed due to valve issues. As the planned flight is "simply" orbiting the Earth, has nobody on board, and our technology is far advanced from the early Moon landings, the cliche question "If we can land a man on the Moon, why can't we perform a simple test flight?" is rolled out again.

The title text is a retelling of the famous inspirational [http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/xzw1gaeeTES6khED14P1Iw.aspx Kennedy address to the US Congress in May 1961], which set into motion the Apollo program, except that this time, the speaker is talking about putting a man on planet Venus. The aide explains to the president that because the atmosphere of Venus is extremely hostile (high pressure, high temperature, strong winds, sulfuric acid rains and lakes), it is unlikely that anybody could land on Venus longer than a few seconds and come back alive. As such, the president backtracks before setting the goal of bringing the astronauts home again. Unmanned hardened pre-cooled robotic probes either got crushed or fried before landing, or survived only a couple of hours at most{{Citation needed}}.

==Transcript==
:Cueball: If we could land a man on the Moon, why can't we -
:Megan: -land a man on the Moon?
:Cueball: ...ok, fair. But we're working on it, OK?

{{comic discussion}}


[[Category: Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Megan]]