Greece Reaches for the Stars: Trolling Peaks After Greek Space Agency's Inauguration

Is this a chance for Greece to spread the culture of frappe coffee outside Earth as well? Image illustration by author Elaine Rigas.

An announcement by the Syriza Greek government was enough to set the Grecophone Internet on fire last week. The announcement concerned the inauguration of the Greek Space Agency. Specifically, the Ministry of Telecoms and Digital Policy noted “the Agency will be a public limited company called National Center for Space Applications (EKDE in Greek), aimed at making up for the country’s huge deficit in this area.”

Minister Nikos Pappas argued that the formation of the Agency was a necessity:

It's self-evident to do such thing. It's unthinkable that Greece doesn't have a space agency so far. It's unimaginable that, up to the recent past we bartered away our rights to outer space and previous governments were responsible for that.

As expected, Twitter “got lost in space” with numerous humorous tweets under the trending hastag #greek_nasa. Some of the best ones were as follows:

Government policy à la Star Wars:

A parody profile of Greek PM Alexis Tsipras explains another reason the program might be unnecessary. (The incorrect wording for “astronaut” satirizes PM's questionable knowledge of English).

While user @tbarbatsalou proposes some alternative naming initials, using the word “Hestra”, which means “shitter can” in Greek:

“Run for your lives”, because…

If you are wondering what happened to Greece's ex-Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, there is some reassuring news. He got promoted to a Spock-like role in the cosmos:

User @VasilisXtM reveals the true reason for the inauguration of the Greek Space Agency:

At last, we will search for memoranda [agreements with creditors] on the moon.

If the Greek astronaut doesn't drink frappe coffee for breakfast, he cannot wake up:

“Houston, we have a problem. The coffee finish” [sic]

Something like “Armageddon” comes from space:

Hubbub and problems in space. The [owners of Greek debt] made a mistake putting pressure on them. Alliances came from far away.

However, there were several tweets that offered more irate commentary on the issue, with users generally viewing the foundation of the Greek Space Agency as a futile provocation.

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