Seriously Unqualified Comedian Applies To Work For NASA And Receives A Hysterical Rejection Letter

Alex Falcone, a writer and comedian from L.A., added another accomplishment to his list. After writing a novel about a teen girl who dated a mummy that didn’t go well with the critics (Publisher’s Weekly called it “unfortunate”), and creating a podcast on the subject of movies (called Read It and Weep), he came so close to becoming an astronaut.

Well, if by close you mean “not a chance whatsoever in a million years after Hell freezes over.” But a detailed and funny rejection letter from a government institution is an accomplishment in itself. We can imagine how amusing his application was.

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Alex has been dreaming about going to space since he was a kid, even though he is entirely unskilled. “I’m dumb, have no useful skills, am hard to get along with over long periods of time (I’ve ruined more than one road trip and multiple book clubs), and I do get motion sick even on short car rides,” he says. “I would be the worst candidate for NASA.

Alex Falcone

The rejection letter did crush his lifelong dream, but it didn’t break him. He was used to being rejected. “Man, I’ve received so many rejections for comedy festivals, writing jobs, and gigs. I used to tell myself, ‘Michael Jordan didn’t make his high school basketball team,’ but then I watched that documentary about him and realized he grew, like, a foot and worked his butt off after that, and I’m not doing either. So now I’ve got nothing to comfort me,” he says. 

Another explanation is that the rejection letter is fake—Alex wrote it himself. It was a joke. Well, we enjoyed it, but we are disappointed that NASA is not so amusing.