I got up at the crack of dawn today, in order to attend another obscenely early morning meeting at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. My client was a fellow named Humperdinck, who appeared to be quite distraught as I greeted him in his office with my patented suave yet hearty handshake.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Humperdinck,” I lied.
“Likewise; Lofgren and Wilkins recommended you very highly,” he assured me, referring to the two NASA psychologists that I advised concerning the Nowak affair. “Please, have a seat. Would you like some coffee?”
Experience has taught me that, like office refrigerators, office coffee machines are usually subject to the Tragedy of the Commons. “No, thank you,” I therefore responded, knowing that if I received a cup of NASA joe, he would watch to see if I drank it. “I made myself some espresso for breakfast.” This was true, actually.
“Well, I hope you won’t mind if I finish this,” Humperdinck declared, hoisting aloft a coffee mug large enough for a turkey vulture to use as a birdbath.
“By all means,” I encouraged as I took a seat in front of his desk. “How can I help the National Aeronautics and Space Administration today?”
Humperdinck took a pull off his coffee mug that would launch a rocket booster up an astronaut’s gazoo, and with that, I knew I was in the presence of a serious caffeine abuser. There is little, I believe, more irritating or annoying than a member of the United States Civil Service hopped up on go-juice, and the habitual offenders are most definitely the worst. There’s nothing a member of the Civil Service likes more than the sound of their own voice, and when they get really jacked up, any one of them can talk a blue streak of moronic inanity that would put all but the most pathetically idiotic and obnoxiously verbose members of Congress to shame.
“It’s the International Space Station,” he began, taking another prodigious swig. “Node Three. The Agency is very proud of the United States’ leading role in the ISS, and the magnificent achievements it has attained since mission inception. And not just scientific achievements, either, Tom, but social and political achievements as well. As the world beneath it continues to face one challenge after another, be it anthropogenic green house gas generation, thinning ozone layers, changing climate patterns, social unrest, terrorism, economic collapse, receding polar caps, internecine strife, new viruses, old plagues, pest infestations, famine, drought, inexplicable global disappearances of ranine species, tsunamis, cyclones, seismic events, tornadic episodes or the constant threat of collision with near earth asteroids or, God forbid, a cometary impact, the ISS has stood in the forefront, exemplifying all that is good and valuable within humanity. And as NASA forges ever stronger strategic partnerships with the world’s other space-faring nations to explore that final frontier, and boldly go where no one has ever gone before…”
“Dr. Humperdinck,” I politely interrupted, “your vision for the future is beyond remarkable. It is,” I creatively prevaricated, “also highly moving, extremely inspiring and profoundly motivating, and I assure you that I am truly grateful to have experienced it, and would like nothing better than to listen to it until it’s time for lunch at the Goddard Space Flight Center’s magnificent government cafeteria. Nevertheless, I have another appointment at eight-thirty, and I am expected to attend it at my office downtown, so I must, reluctantly, ask that you cease providing me with the incomparable pleasure of your towering intellect and, if you would, enlighten me as to what your problem might be.”
“Oh,” he sighed, “yes, that. It’s the name for Node Three, you see. We had our usual panel of United States Civil Service public relations experts compile the preferred list – ‘Earthrise,’ ‘Serenity,’ ‘Legacy’ and ‘Venture.’ Then we had NASA contractors prepare a Web page on the NASA site, and, as I usually do, I included additional elements in the specification that were intended to enhance public relations, including a facility whereby members of the public could cast electronic votes indicating their preference for ‘Earthrise,’ ‘Serenity,’ ‘Legacy’ or ‘Venture.’ Furthermore – and here is where the subsequent difficulties arose, by the way – I also included among those features the ability for members of the public to suggest other names for Node Three and vote on them. Well, let me tell you, Tom, I was shocked and dismayed when I discovered that some cable television personality who calls himself ‘Stephen Colbert’ had started a campaign among his viewers to stuff the ballot box with his name! And it was certainly a revelation when I tuned in to watch his show last night! My God, Tom, the man’s some kind of incontinently blithering, aggressively ignorant, obviously half-witted right-wing lunatic demagogue!”
“Ah, not really,” I helpfully interjected. “That’s all just an act.”
Humperdinck’s eyebrows leapt toward the ceiling. “It is?”
“Absolutely,” I explained. “Colbert’s shtick, as they call it in show business, is to present the audience with a clever parody of people like Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.”
Obviously, the rigors of promoting space exploration have left little time for Dr. Humperdinck to watch cable television, or listen to talk radio, for that matter, because the next words out of his mouth were “Excuse me, but who are those individuals?”
“They,” I explained, “are five of the genuine incontinently blithering, aggressively ignorant, obviously half-witted right-wing lunatic demagogues that Stephen Colbert parodies on his cable television show, whom I cited as examples. Their numbers are, in fact, legion.”
At that, despite his huge caffeine buzz, Humperdinck managed to pause for a moment of whatever it is that approximates thought in the mind of a member of the United States Civil Service. “Interesting. Do you suppose the existence of such an influence on society might have had certain… impacts on NASA’s budget?”
“Given,” I informed him, “that they generally scoff at Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, proclaim that AIDS is God’s wrath punishing sinners, and insist that there isn’t any scientific evidence that the world is more than about ten thousand years old, yes, I suppose it might have.”
“Well,” Humperdinck ruminated, “that’s a pretty serious issue. What with all the millions of hours and thousands of lives dedicated to the scientific method over the last five centuries at stake, you’d think somebody would do something about troglodytic cretins like that.”
“Indeed, Dr. Humperdinck,” I concurred, “one most certainly would.”
“In addition to spearheading this… ISS node naming thing, I was,” Humperdinck elaborated, still in a deep funk about my revelation, “the one who came up with the idea filling a computer disk with messages composed by members of the general public – and, I might add, not just Americans, either – and sending that disk with the Cassini mission to Saturn.”
“Oh, yeah,” I responded. “There was a Web site where you could go and type in your message, up to 1024 characters. I did that.”
Humperdinck smiled broadly at my statement. “Right. See there? That’s good NASA mission-oriented public relations, isn’t it? I got millions of people involved with, aware of, and concerned about the Cassini spacecraft and its Huygens Titan probe!” His expression changed to one of genial intellectual curiosity. “And, if I may, Mr. Collins, what message did you leave, to be discovered someday in the future by alien visitors to our solar system?”
“A very simple and direct one,” I told him in a matter-of-fact tone. “’Warning, extreme peril. Beware the third planet from this star. The inhabitants are extremely dangerous. If you attempt to make peaceful contact with them, the humans of Earth will eventually annihilate you, whether for reasons of commerce, religion, philosophy or simple, mindless fear, it will not matter when you are dead and the humans of Earth have decided to find your home planet, invade it, destroy your civilization and steal everything there in the name of their nations, their gods, their corporations or their personal egos. They will do it to you, just as they have done it to one another for over a million years. Avoid contact with humans at all costs. Save yourselves, your culture, your progeny and your home planet. Turn around and go back where you came from immediately. Erase all records and forget you ever saw this place. Don’t believe the other messages. The Earthlings who wrote them are either hopelessly naive, incredibly stupid, or lying in order to deceive you.’”
My recitation took Dr. Humperdinck aback to such a degree that, despite his extraordinary degree of caffeination, he could think of nothing to say. Instead, he sat, drumming his fingers on his desk, in a state of extreme agitation for several minutes. At last, he spoke. “I simply can’t comprehend,” he muttered, “how Lofgren and Wilkins could possibly recommend somebody who would write a message like that, I mean, a message intended to be read by extraterrestrial explorers, for Christ’s sake! How could you possibly do something like that?”
“How,” I volleyed back, “could hundreds of thousands of Stephen Colbert’s fans decide that ‘Colbert’ is an appropriate name for an International Space Station node?”
“I… I have no idea,” he stuttered. “That’s why I called you!”
“But,” I pointed out, “your responses indicate that if I were, in fact, to provide you with answers, you would, in all likelihood, be completely incapable of understanding my explanations.”
Humperdinck stood up, ramrod straight, his face a bright crimson. I could make out the veins in his face, each standing out in high relief, like the craters of the Moon in oblique sunlight. “Then, Mr. Collins,” he roared, “it would appear that this entire endeavour is a ridiculous waste of the American taxpayers’ money!”
“You mean,” I replied, “like the International Space Station?”
Just as Humperdinck balled up his fists, clenched his teeth, and prepared to shout something at me, a rivulet of blood ran out of his nose, after which he pitched forward onto his desk. I dialed 911 and gave him CPR, of course, but he died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital anyway. His wife, whom I met there, mentioned that he has arranged to be cremated and have a portion of his ashes placed in a tiny gold storage vessel and sent into outer space – where, I suppose, they will be discovered some time in the distant future by extraterrestrial explorers who will quickly determine that they taste absolutely terrible.