US Senator Ted Cruz made sure he was in the crosshair of many when he said during an open Senate hearing this week that the US President Donald Trump’s plan to create a sixth branch of the US military, the US Space Force, was critical to fighting space pirates. As expected, the Twitter users were more than just savage and had him so frustrated that he even complained about it to Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tx) is the chairman of the US Senate Subcommittee on Aviation and Space. He held a hearing this week on the ‘Emerging Space Environment: Operational, Technical, and Policy Challenges’. The talk was about as dry as the name suggests. However, Cruz was able to gain traction on Twitter thanks to his remark about space piracy and how it was a reason for forming the sixth branch of the US military, the Space Force – an idea that has been put forth by the US President Donald Trump.
Cruz said, ‘Since the ancient Greeks first put to sea, nations have recognized the necessity of naval forces and maintaining a superior capability to protect waterborne travel and commerce from bad actors. Pirates threaten the open seas, and the same is possible in space. In this same way, I believe we, too, must now recognize the necessity of a space force to defend the nation and to protect space commerce and civil space exploration.’
Space pirates are not a real thing, and they won’t be for another hundred years, that is if they ever come to be. Twitter users, however, were not merciful and made sure that such a remark didn’t go unaddressed. A barrage of tweets came directed at the senator where some made fun while others highlighted how Cruz had misunderstood the historical naval term.
Cruz wasn’t able to do firefighting properly, and once the mockery became the Twitter event of the day, he demanded to see Twitter’s manager Jack Dorsey. It was a huge debacle if we are honest!