If you try hard enough, you can probably come up with 100 reasons not to vote. You’re working. You have a date. You have to walk your dog, feed your tarantula, or wash your hair. (Or wash your dog’s hair while feeding him a tarantula.) But one NASA astronaut is about to prove that you have no excuses for skipping out on your civic duty. Why? Because she’s voting from space.
“It’s critical to participate in our democracy,” NASA astronaut Kate Rubins told The Associate Press. “We consider it an honor to be able to vote from space.”
Rubins will be cruising over 200 miles above her nearest polling place when she casts her ballot. But instead of using the USPS to deliver it like the rest of us, she’ll receive her absentee ballot electronically from Mission Control in Houston, Texas.
According to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, “Using a set of unique credentials sent to each of them by e-mail, astronauts can access their ballots, cast their votes, and downlink them back down to Earth,” where they are forwarded to the county clerk to be counted.
As cool as Rubins’ Election Day workaround is, she isn’t the first to “vote while you float.” That honor went to astronaut David Wolf in 1997, shortly after then-Governor George W. Bush signed a measure into law that allowed astronauts to vote while on missions. The measure originated in Texas because most astronauts live in Houston.
“I think it’s really important for everybody to vote,” Rubins said. “If we can do it from space, then I believe folks can do it from the ground, too.”
Come Nov. 3, be like an astronaut, not a space cadet. Vote!
Cover Photo: Bill Ingalls/NASA / Handout (Getty Images)
Biden vs. Trump: Which Political Candidate Has Better Hair?
MORE NEWS:
Mandatory Voting: 12 Simple Reasons to Be Pro Joe (And Against Don the Con)
Visit the Mandatory Shop for great deals on your very own Mandatory merch.
Follow Mandatory on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Weird News 7/21/2020
-
Men’s Beards May Have Evolved to Sustain Punches to the Head, Random Study Suggests Scientists Are Running Out of Things to Study
For more weird news, click here.
Photo Credit: max-kegfire (Getty Images)
-
Louisiana Man Puts the ‘Ass’ in Bass Pro Shop by Swimming in Fish Tank
For more weird news, click here.
Photo Credit: Niklas Jourdan / EyeEm (Getty Images)
-
San Jose Police Fire Rubber Bullets at Their Own Trainer, Rupturing His Testicle (That’s Nuts)
For more weird news, click here.
Photo Credit: MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images / Contributor (Getty Images)
-
Apple Delays iPhone 12 Release, Consumers Expected to Just Use Phone They’ve Had a Whole Year Already
For more weird news, click here.
Photo Credit: Adam Kuylenstierna / EyeEm (Getty Images)
-
Ivanka Trump Tells Unemployed Americans to ‘Find Something New,’ Which Is Precisely What We Wish Her Whole Family Would Do
For more weird news, click here.
Photo Credit: Alex Wong / Staff (Getty Images)
-
Dumb as Rocks: Kanye West Photoshops His Face Onto Mount Rushmore
For more weird news, click here.
Photo Credit: @kanyewest (Twitter)
-
The Internet Had Its Phallic Way With Ivanka Trump Modeling Goya Beans, Hilarious Tweets Ensued
For more weird news, click here.
Photo Credit: @SsnarkIsMyGame (Twitter)
-
Rudy Giuliani Calls NYPD After Being Pranked by Sacha Baron Cohen, Can Only Take a Joke if it Becomes President
For more weird news, click here.
Photo Credit: The Hollywood Reporter, via Getty Images
-
Badass Mother Who Wore Face Mask Through 38-Hour Labor Says ‘If I Can, So Can You’
For more weird news, click here.
Photo Credit: Jai Kershner
-
Aww Nuts: Squirrel in Colorado Tests Positive for Bubonic Plague Because 2020
For more weird news, click here.
Photo Credit: Picture Alliance via Getty Images
-
Meanwhile in Florida…Woman Sues for Paternity Test on Goats (But Not for the Reason You Think)
For more weird news, click here.
Photo Credit: SOPA Images via Getty Images
-
Trump’s Terrorist Theory of 75-Year-Old Man Shoved by Police Exhibits New Expert Level of Sociopathic Thinking
For more weird news, click here.
Photo Credit: Pool, Getty Images
