NASA Chrononaut Begs Not to Return to Future

By Darnell Hooper. |  Chief Political Correspondent

GODDARD SPACE CENTER, GREENBELT, MD —The world’s first successful human time-travel experiment took a troubling turn this week when NASA’s lead subject, 47-year-old physicist Dr. Allan Bicks, refused to return to his own era, pleading with mission control to let him remain in 2025.

According to internal documents, the mission — formally titled Operation HINDSIGHT, and part of NASA’s C.H.R.O.N.O. Program (Controlled Human Relocation and Observation of Nonlinear Occurrence) — had aimed to send a single test subject from the year 2075 back fifty years to confirm the viability of controlled temporal displacement. What mission officials got instead, they say, was “a man who looked like he’d seen every apocalypse trailer ever made.”

According to internal transcripts leaked online, Dr. Bicks emerged from the time capsule “wide-eyed, shaking, and muttering something about clean air, intact coastlines, and ‘people still talking to each other.’” Within minutes, he was reportedly hugging bystanders and weeping with joy after discovering that gasoline still cost less than $40 a gallon.

When ground control informed him he’d have to return to complete the experiment, Bicks allegedly dropped to his knees and begged, “Please, don’t send me back there. You don’t know what’s coming. This is paradise.”

NASA’s public affairs office initially declined to comment, issuing only a brief statement noting that “the subject experienced temporal disorientation consistent with expectations.” Privately, several engineers described the exchange as “the most unsettling pep talk about the present we’ve ever heard."

A spokesman for Elon Musk's Space X refused to comment until Elon could figure out a way to make this all about him.

By late evening, social media had already coined the hashtag #GoodOldDaysGate, and economists began debating whether the traveler’s comments could trigger a pre-emptive recession.

Trump White House officials attempted to calm fears, insisting there was “no reason to panic” and that Bicks’ warnings likely reflected “temporal jet lag", and "has absolutely nothing to do with anything we've done". However, sources confirm the Pentagon has since requested immediate access to all logs from Operation Hindsight, as well as “any notes referencing the phrase ‘rat swarm economy.’”

The reaction from world leaders has been swift.

 The leaders of the G-7 countries, the UN Security Council, NATO commanders, the Chinese Communist Party, the Kremlin, and Bono issued a joint statement in hopes of unifying global support behind the conclusion: We Are Fucked!

As of press time, Dr. Bicks remains under observation at a secure NASA facility, where he is said to be “enjoying his first real sandwich in years” and quietly repeating, “The sky’s still blue… it’s still blue…”

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Boardwalk Barker is a satirical publication. The stories and quotes herein are works of humor and parody.