It’s the year 2020. The Mayan prophecy has failed but America has descended into a cultural wasteland worse than the Apocalypse: NBC’s Emmy-winning show Whitney is on its seventeenth season, Katherine Heigl has racked up more Oscars than Katharine Hepburn and, based on the exponential growth of smartphone technology, Siri has become a single working mother with a heartbeat. Eight years of President Gingrich have transformed the country into a playground for rampant, corporate-subsidized capitalism, allowing income inequalities to grow larger than his fantastic ego.
After beating out former Vice President Al Gore in the 2016 election, his administration embarked on the greatest quest for mankind since the creation of Wonder Bread: the Lunar Colony, which he said would achieve greatness in “science, tourism and manufacturing.” By the end of the decade, it is finished. Welcome to the amusement park of stellar consumerism — Moon, the 51st state. Population: 13,000.
SCIENCE
- Now that the iPhone has turned into the iMind, allowing you to telepathically sext one another, there is no need for the Genius Bar or nagging Apple employees with earpieces. The first Apple store that opens on the Moon, with its neo-modern taste for sleek efficiency, offers customer service like this.
- NYU began its development plans as soon as Newt announced his magnum opus back in 2012. The off-Earth campus, known as NYU: Space Base (or NYUSB if you’re into the whole brevity thing) and solely dedicated to further space exploration, was built on Governor’s Island and rocket-lifted to the Moon as soon as the President signed off on the colony’s state application. It is the first Western institution on an orbiting satellite, home to the the only Chik-fil-A in the area and features “Writing the Essay” for the adventurous freshman.
TOURISM
- In his dystopic ballad “Imagine There’s No Pizza,” Herman Cain, as we all were, was worried for the fast food future of Earth. So when he endorsed Newt just days after the Lunar Colony announcement, talks began between the two on what the diet of the Americans in space would consist of. The result was a subsidy on Godfather’s Pizza restaurants for the new Surgeon General and this billboard welcoming your safe arrival in your new home.
- Disney Space is the first resort on the Moon that’s fun for the whole family! The simulated beachfront is a great place for the kids to play beach volleyball (Newt’s sport of choice) and surf the gravity-less tides while mom and dad eat a lovely candlelit dinner just feet away at T.G.I.Mitt’s, serving up the finest in Mormon cuisine since the 2012 election. If you want to take a trip through time, there is always the Epcot 2.0, the intergalactic equivalent of the Museum of Natural History that offers a tour through the rise and fall of the Occupy movement. Come and see real ex-protesters depressingly sing, “It’s a Small World After All!”
- Modeled after the 1990s indiehouse hit Space Jam and home to the 2032 Olympic Games, the Reagan Stadium is the athletic center of the Moon. As the great thinker Andrew Olshevski predicted, Drake performs the half-time show every night for whatever event is on the menu. Play ball!
MANUFACTURING
- To attract corporations, the federal government enacted tax incentives and loopholes, paid for travel and outsourced the worst that American business had to offer. So when the 13,000 Americans showed up to settle the new frontier, it was no surprise that a Wal-Mart was already up and running. President Newt wanted a space citizenry with tough work ethics, like the original pioneers of the West, and he got it, especially with the younger generations. After attending space school from nine to three, it’s off to the toothbrush factory for a night of brushing up on space asbestos and vocal lessons.
I wonder what Earth would have looked like if Al Gore won in 2016. One can only dream…
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Love the article. But seriously, let’s think about Newt’s plans for a Moon colony. First of all, this is a man who, if he was campaigning in Oklahoma, would be vehemently against organizations like NASA. But since he’s on the Space Coast, not only are we going to the moon, we’re damn well living on it! And it will be our 51st state! What the hell is Puerto Rico anyways? After all, what respect can this man have for science after creating a false equivalency between evolution and creationism and disavowing global warming.
But, think of the money this would waste. I’m all for NASA and space exploration–but colonizing the moon is egregious when America has the greatest income inequality and, much much importantly, lack of OPPORTUNITY in half a century. Let’s do some nation building here before we go off and colonize the moon.
If anyone ever lets you near a book deal, I would bet you could “eclipse” Huxley in scaring the shit out of us with a dystopian future.