(2005-09-22) — While Republicans in Congress eye NASA’s budget as a potential money source to cover Hurricane Katrina recovery costs, a spokesman for the space agency today offered a new plan to permanently evacuate Gulf Coast residents to the moon, “where the native language doesn’t even have a word for hurricane.”

“Cutting NASA funding is a wrongheaded reactionary measure at a time when we should be proactive about providing people with a safe place to live,” said the unnamed NASA source. “You never hear about devastating natural disasters on the lunar surface — no hurricanes, no forest fires, no tornadoes, no tsunamis.”

He called crater-making meteor strikes “infrequent and unlikely to impact human settlements.”

In the meantime, as Hurricane Rita moves toward the Texas Gulf Coast, Democrats in Congress attacked President George Bush for his failure to send in astronauts to move residents to safety. Their criticism recalled images of school buses sitting in a flooded New Orleans parking lot.

“We have dozens of trained astronauts sitting around the Johnson Space Center in Houston,” said one unnamed Democrat Senator. “We should be busing evacuees to Cape Canaveral then shuttling them to temporary quarters on the International Space Station. They can sleep on cots there until FEMA sets up some trailer parks on the moon.”

At a news conference, NASA previewed a marketing program to sell homes in charming lunar subdivisions with a jingle based on the 1970s ‘Carpenters’ hit song ‘On Top of the World’.

In a 30-second TV ad, happy moon residents sing, “Not a cloud in the sky, got the sun in my eyes and I won’t be surprised if it’s a dream.“

Post This to Your Facebook