Cadillac’s Curious Take on the Moon

Equating a product with the Apollo program and America’s signature accomplishment in the Moon landing is hardly unusual, and in this regard Cadillac is no different.  A  new commercial featuring actor Neal McDonough as a hard driving, over achieving American seems to mirror the current Administration’s somewhat ambivalent attitude towards the Moon.

When the White House announced its cancellation of Project Constellation at the Kennedy Space Center in April 2010, the reason cited was not for the very valid set of arguments that the program was outdated, behind, badly over budget and impossible to afford, but instead because “we’ve been there before.”

General Motors appears to agree, or does it?  American are so hardworking the ad asserts, we left the Moon because we were bored. Not to worry though, we left the keys in the (rover) because “we’re the only ones going back up there.”

Well that’s good news at least.  And, as Innerspace.net emphasizes, almost any advance and widespread consumer acceptance of  electric hybrid technology is at least tangentially beneficial to some of the long term challenges of living off planet. At a 37 mile range before the generator kicks in, whether the ELR constitutes much of an advance is an open question.

It is after all just an advertisement, and one which seems to have garnered the most attention due to an apparent fashion faux-pas committed when McDonough buttons both buttons on his suit.   Still considering the heavy airplay the spot is receiving during the Winter Olympics, one has to wonder if the oddly mixed message isn’t a telling, if inadvertent glimpse into the current American mindset regarding the future of lunar exploration.  If so, at least the message is mixed, and therefore an improvement over the scorn heaped on Newt Gingrich by Mitt Romney when the subject came up during the 2012 Republican Presidential debates.

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