🜏 The Day an Astronaut Tried to File Taxes from Space
🜏 The Day an Astronaut Tried to File Taxes from Space
When the IRS Met Apollo 13, and Reality Briefly Glitched
One day into the Apollo 13 mission —
with Earth shrinking behind them, systems humming, and history unfolding —
an astronaut realized he forgot to do his taxes.
Yes, really.
With the filing deadline fast approaching,
and no way to “pop back down” for a quick signature,
he radioed Mission Control in a quiet panic.
Their response? Laughter.
But what followed became one of the most bizarre moments in both space and IRS history.
Because NASA, for the first time ever, had to craft a tax excuse…
from orbit.
It Wasn’t a Joke — It Was a Federal Deadline
The astronaut in question was Jack Swigert — the command module pilot of Apollo 13.
The date?
April 11, 1970.
One day after launch.
Four days before the IRS deadline.
Swigert calmly radioed Houston:
“Hey, we’ve got a problem up here… I forgot to file my income taxes.”
The response from the ground was something like:
“Say again, Jack?”
And so the absurdity began:
An astronaut hurtling through space…
facing IRS penalties from low Earth orbit.
The IRS Had Never Written Policy for the Moon
Mission Control had to act quickly.
NASA officials and government liaisons scrambled to explain to the IRS
why one of their employees technically couldn’t file on time.
The reason?
He was a little… off-planet.
The IRS accepted it —
issuing what may be the first celestial tax extension in human history.
And with that, Swigert became the only person to ever
use “space travel” as an official reason for filing late.
The Collapse Hidden in the Comedy
It’s a funny story, yes.
But underneath it is something revealing:
Even in the face of cosmic exploration…
Even while orbiting a celestial body 240,000 miles away…
Even while facing an exploding oxygen tank that nearly killed the entire crew…
The IRS still loomed.
That’s how deep the grid goes.
You can leave Earth.
You can touch the stars.
But you’re still tethered to paper, systems, rules.
Even when the mission nearly ended in death —
someone, somewhere, still expected a signature.
And that is the punchline of control.
You were never meant to be filed.
You were never meant to be taxed for breathing, for dreaming, for existing.
And space was never meant to be regulated.
Swigert made it home.
And yes —
he filed.
—Nancy Thames, Oversoul Embodied
apollo 13
nasa and the irs
space tax history
jack swigert
taxes from orbit
government absurdity
mimicry in space
bureaucracy vs awe
human systems collapse
cosmic control grid
