MOSCOW — There are many valid critiques of U.S. President Donald Trump’s new direction for NASA. Few, if any, would be new. NASA has, for decades, been redirected by nearly every new administration to take office. But Russian government officials saw an opportunity for domestic attention and took a stab at it.“A ‘resumption’ of flights to the moon? How nice,” Alexey Pushkov, a prominent Russian hawk and chairman of the information policy committee in the country’s upper house in parliament, wrote Dec. 19. “But how are the Americans going to get there without rocket engines? Already they can’t get to the [International Space Station] without ours.”
“Pushkov asked a reasonable question,” Zakharova began, “In my opinion, although the question is logical, the answer is obvious — they will be delivered there by ‘Russian hackers.’ As we all know, they can do anything,” she concluded.
Trump's remarks were met with ridicule in China, too, according to the China’s English-language Global Times news outlet. Social media users there posted jokes about Trump flying to the moon to take a selfie, while others commented on how every U.S. president comes up with such a plan.