While U.S. President Donald Trump was shaking hands of world leaders in Europe, back home, his vice president, Mike Pence, was touching things he was not supposed to. A photo of Pence while touring the Kennedy Space Center of NASA in Cape Canaveral, Florida, became viral for the wrong reason.

The VP was caught on camera touching a critical space flight hardware despite the very clear instruction not to touch it. Mike Brown, a Reuters photographer, captured the moment. The image spawned memes and elicited comments from all over because it showed the number two official in the U.S.

blatantly violating an exhibit rule in public, Huffington Post reported.

Peer pressure

Like a school boy out with his gang, Pence, it turned out, gave in to peer pressure when he touched the hardware. In a tweet, Pence explained he broke NASA exhibit’s rule on a dare from Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Time reported.

Like high school kids caught in a misdemeanor, the two politicians pointed a finger at each other. Rubio washed his hands off the incident by tweeting that he gave the VP fair warning of the consequences of his act.

NASA lets the 2 officials get away with incident

Ironically, NASA just let go of the incident probably because the two are influential officials of the Trump administration, who may have an influence on its budget, are involved.

The space agency even said neither Pence nor Rubio needed to apologize for breaching its exhibit rules, Time reported.

In a statement, NASA said the “Do Not Touch” sign is a daily reminder only. Since NASA procedures require cleaning the hardware before the tiles are bonded to the spacecraft, “so touching the surface is okay.

Otherwise, the hardware would have a protective cover on it like the thermal heat shield, which was nearby.”

Netizens, however, saw the incident in a humorous light and Photoshopped the image to make memes of the vice president. Pence is seen touching instead a porcupine which the VP himself tweeted.

Citrine replaced Pence with a caricature figure.

Alexander Skitch placed the photo of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie while lounging on the beach.

On Reddit, the image was digitally altered to make Pence touch an infant image of Trump, the belly of an iguana, and a plane engine.

In 2005, Pence tried to shut down the space exploration plans of NASA. He was, however, recently appointed the chair of the recently revived National Space Council which likely explains why he was exempt from the “Do not touch” rule.
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