conspiracy-theorists
Explanation
The Joke
A man scoffs at the idea that we have not returned to the Moon, saying: "Yeah right. We learned to make giant space rockets, landed on the Moon, drew up moonbase plans, then just decided to stay home. HA!" The caption below reads: "Conspiracy theorists make me sad."
The Humor
The comic cleverly inverts the typical Moon landing conspiracy theory. Usually, conspiracy theorists claim the Moon landings were faked. Here, the man is actually stating what genuinely happened -- the United States did land on the Moon, did draw up plans for Moon bases, and then did effectively decide to stay home due to budget cuts and shifting political priorities. But he is presenting these true facts sarcastically, as though they are too absurd to believe. The irony is devastating: the real history of the space program sounds so implausible that a conspiracy theorist mocks it as obvious fiction. The caption "Conspiracy theorists make me sad" works on two levels -- it could be read as the woman's reaction to the man's conspiracy theorizing, but it also expresses genuine sadness that humanity really did abandon its Moon ambitions after Apollo.
References
The United States' Apollo program successfully landed humans on the Moon six times between 1969 and 1972. NASA did develop plans for permanent lunar bases, but funding was cut as political interest waned after the Space Race. The last crewed Moon mission was Apollo 17 in December 1972, and as of the comic's publication in 2015, no human had returned to the lunar surface.