Space
Explanation
The Joke
The comic presents a list of "Space Missions to Capture the Public Imagination" -- ideas for space programs that would actually get people excited. The suggestions include: "Popping Europa" (shown as a spacecraft literally crashing into Jupiter's moon Europa and cracking it open), a reality show set inside the thin shell of Venus' atmosphere where human life is conceivably possible, "Celebrity Purgatory: Season 4" (set on a barren, windswept world), and "Martian Makeover" where an astronaut on Mars admits "We can't afford to get a whole new atmosphere, but look how much more survivable it seems with this light-toned drapery!"
The comic satirizes the perpetual struggle of space agencies to make space exploration exciting to the general public. Real space missions involve years of incremental scientific data collection, which is hard to sell. The comic suggests that what would actually capture the public imagination is the same lowbrow entertainment that dominates television: destruction spectacles, reality shows, celebrity content, and home makeover programs.
The Humor
The humor comes from the contrast between the grandeur of space exploration and the trashy, lowest-common-denominator entertainment formats being proposed. Each suggestion takes a real celestial body with genuine scientific interest (Europa's subsurface ocean, Venus' habitable atmospheric zone, Mars terraforming) and repackages it as vapid television programming. "Martian Makeover" is particularly funny because it applies the logic of a home renovation show to planetary engineering -- you cannot afford to actually fix the fundamental problem (no breathable atmosphere), so you just put up some curtains instead. The comic is a commentary on both the failure of science communication and the dominance of shallow entertainment culture.