IN EVENT OF A HOSTILE MOON ENCOUNTER

PRESIDENT READS TEXT AS FOLLOWS:

Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace after dying in peace from whatever is killing them in peace up there on the moon.

These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice. And whatever they do now, alone on the moon will be A-OK, because no one’s going to judge them.

These two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding. They are not the first explorers to venture out into the unknown, nor the first to be eaten alive by some horrible unknown creature against which shovels as weapons are useless. Nor, we may hope, will they be the last.

They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by the nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown. We will not let their frantic and panicked pleas, their ill-chosen words, or their disturbing admissions sully our true memory and knowledge of these brave men.

In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man.

In ancient days, men looked at the stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood, trapped and alone, running out of oxygen, fleeing some terrifying moon creature that eats return spacecraft.

Others will follow, and surely kill the thing that is killing them now. They will kill the thing and all things like the thing, whatever it is that the thing is. Man's revenge will not be denied. We will show those things pictures of Neil and Buzz as we kill the thing and the children of the thing (if it has any) in front of the thing. If it is necessary, we will learn to communicate with the thing just to explain to it why we are killing it and all others like it and how long it’s going to take and how they can’t do anything about it and how much we enjoy it. But however many of these things we end up killing we will remember: they started it by eating these two great pioneers.

For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world newly stained with our bravest human blood. And every thing that lives upon the moon should see Earth rise and know: here is your executioner.

PRIOR TO THE PRESIDENT'S STATEMENT:

The President should telephone each of the widows-to-be. He will probably need a FEW stiff ones.

NASA SHOULD END COMMUNICATION WITH THE MEN IMMEDIATELY WHEN:

Either astronaut drops the f-bomb again.

Neil begins calling for his mother again.

Buzz sings.

Crunching or chewing sounds are heard.

AFTER THE PRESIDENT'S STATEMENT, AT THE POINT WHEN NASA ENDS COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE MEN:

A clergyman should adopt the same procedure as a burial at sea, replacing “sea” and “deep” with “hostile airless moon” and concluding with the Lord’s Prayer.

Sonny and Cher sing “Space Oddity”