NASA is relying on the help of billionaires to get back to the Moon, and that has already had some peculiar consequences, with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk promising to plant an anime flag on Earth’s satellite.
The tech entrepreneur made the unusual pledge on Twitter, after YouTuber Craig Thompson, known as Mini Ladd, issued the challenge. “No reason – just pretty funny!” he said.
Thompson’s dare rapidly racked up thousands of likes and obviously piqued Musk’s interest, as he quickly acceded to the request. “You got it!” read his brief reply.
Musk’s message unleashed a flood of responses as Twitter users made a pitch for their favorite characters from Japanese animation, just in case the SpaceX boss really was being serious.
Unsurprisingly, things soon took a blue turn as some suggested characters from the overtly sexual hentai sub-genre of anime. Meanwhile, many Musk followers took the opportunity to revel in the tech billionaire’s latest bizarre pronouncement, and posted memes to mark the occasion.
On Thursday, NASA announced that Musk’s SpaceX was among three private space companies that will lead the development of lunar landers for its upcoming Moon landings. The landers will ferry astronauts from the lunar orbit to the surface of the Moon and back again.
Blue Origin, owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and Alabama-based Dynetics, were also selected for the project, and handed contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
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