THE NEW SPUTNIK: RUSSIA RECLAIMS COMMAND OF SPACE

      The Rainbow-Pride American aerospace program is facing a problem. It seems that they have a critical shortage of rocket engines, which is about to get worse. Actually, the problem has been ongoing for some time; though Ameroboobs have chosen to ignore it. But the problem boils down to this:

         American schools are failing to produce engineers, and the American government is failing to fund any aerospace research and development. The American public is preoccupied with dollar-chasing, mindless media distractions, and doing drugs. This state of affairs has put the Pentagon and NASA in the humiliating position of obtaining critical aerospace equipment from foreign countries. Meanwhile, our leaders focus on more pressing issues like gender-neutral toilets and banning Christmas displays.

         Now it happens that Russia is still producing rocket engines, and still operating manned flights to the Space Station. So even after Obama's retaliatory economic sanctions against Russia and his military build-ups on the Russian border, the US Congress has been shamefacedly obliged to bow to Russia and exempt aerospace technology from their otherwise bellicose policies.

           This hasn't set well with the neo-Right, and Senator John McCain has cut the funding for future purchases of the advanced RD-180 Russian rocket engines. Eager to 'get back at them ol' Russkies', the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act would speed up phasing-out of the RD-180. The Pentagon, though, has brought up a minor detail.

          According to one Pentagon bureaucrat, Robert Work, the Pentagon hasn't a comparable available source and proposed projects could be delayed up to two years, if we stop using the RD-180.

             The logical course of action would obviously be to revive America's moribund aerospace industry. But to do that would be to admit that ours is actually failing. So the likelihood will be that, our program will be completely nonexistent in a few years while China and Russia are actively conquering Space.

              The Ameroboob presidential candidates, who all favor embargoes and sanctions, should take note that it is probably a good idea to make sure that we actually produce things here before suspending imports. Now a few pundits pompously argue that American Exceptionalism---something that disappeared along with our aerospace program---will miraculously and spontaneously arise to fill the gap. The Media has been promoting one such entrepreneur in Colorado, who is hoping to build an environmentally-friendly copy of the RD-180 and believes that a whopping two engines will be produced by 2020.

           This situation clearly illustrates the major flaw in American neo-Right thinking. Conservatives tend to believe that the American spirit of fifty years ago is somehow lying dormant in the American psyche---just waiting for the right crisis to arise and awaken it and make America great again. Crisis after crisis has arisen, and this spirit has shown no sign of arousing. That is because it is, in fact, dead.

          Americans in the mid-20th had the luxury of living in an era before Narcissism, the Cult of the Victim, and Political Correctness were the new normal. That's why we could work together doing things then like winning WW2 and launching lunar expeditions. Today, Americans can't even agree on what gender differences are.

         But not to worry, there's a pill for that.

          So while the Russian and Chinese people reap the benefits of scientific achievement, the American people can go on conquering space in their own way: