The crew of Artemis II phoned home from above the moon on Monday night after their record-breaking day, to find Donald Trump musing about how he had saved the US space agency, Nasa, from closing down and telling the astronauts how much they deserved the honor of the president seeking their autographs.
The intermittently uncomfortable 12-minute Earth-to-space call, facilitated by the Nasa administrator and Trump acolyte, Jared Isaacman, featured a lengthy period of silence, several references by the president about his friendship with the retired Canadian ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky, and how “America is the hottest country in the world right now”.
