NASA Website Completely Shut Down ‘Due to Lapse in Funding’
October 1, 2013
Saved under R. Savastio, Science
NASA has completely shut down its website, making it impossible for users to obtain important information. When attempting to get to the site, the user is greeted with a notice that says “Due to the lapse in federal government funding, this website is not available. We sincerely regret this inconvenience. For information about available government services, visit USA.gov.”Really? Was it really necessary for the NASA website to shut down completely? Isn’t web hosting pre-paid? And once the website is built, don’t the existing pages need little to no maintenance to remain online? This is just another example of how ridiculous and absurd our government is.
It’s not just the NASA website that is completely shut down, but also all of their social media accounts. If you’re one to track asteroids heading towards Earth, you’re out of luck. The NASA agency responsible for letting the public know about any potentially hazardous asteroids hurtling toward Earth, NASA Asteroid Watch, has stopped Tweeting. The NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Near Earth Object Office is also totally closed, of course, which means we have no clue if a colossal space rock is zooming toward us or not.
NASA agrees that we are s*** out of luck when it comes to their protecting us from any dangerous space debris, falling asteroids or alien invasions. @NASAVoyager2 tweeted a sort of sc*** you warning: “Due to government shutdown, we will not be posting or responding from this account. Farewell, humans. Sort it out yourselves.”
Uhm, ok…we guess. Except we have no idea what we’re doing and no way of knowing if we’re in danger from any icky space junk or worse yet, Martians. But in all seriousness, the NASA website being closed down is an enormous pain in the a**.
Luckily, NASA has decided to not abandon the astronauts currently residing on the International Space Station. “To protect the life of the crew as well as the assets themselves, we would continue to support planned operations of the ISS [space station] during any funding hiatus,” said a statement from their operations office. “Moreover, NASA will be closely monitoring the impact of an extended shutdown to determine if crew transportation or cargo resupply services are required to mitigate imminent threats to life and property on the ISS or other areas,” they said.
Well, that’s decent of them, since it’s obvious the government doesn’t care if the masses starve or perish. At least we know they won’t let the astronauts die of starvation. That’s something, right? That would probably be pretty bad PR, although at this point, how much worse can the government’s PR really get?
Most importantly, are we going to be getting a complete refund for all the federal taxes we pay during this time period? We certainly ought to, and the American people should refuse to pay once cent for any federal taxes from this morning until this preposterous nonsense comes to its inevitable conclusion.
The NASA website is completely shut down ‘due to a lapse in funding.’ This shutdown is completely unnecessary and is a great inconvenience. CNN reports that the shutdown seems as though it won’t be ending anytime soon. Let’s hope that by the time it does, Earth won’t have been obliterated by an asteroid.
