Hillary Clinton • Space Shuttle Atlantis
© Reuters/Brendan McDermid/Reuters/Bill Ingalls
Hillary Clinton • Space Shuttle Atlantis
Twitter users have launched dozens of snarky memes into digital orbit after Hillary Clinton recounted how NASA had crushed her childhood dream of becoming an astronaut. Marking the first all-woman spacewalk, Clinton illustrated just how far gender equality has come in the last 60 years.

"When I was a little girl, I wrote to NASA and told them I dreamed of being an astronaut. They wrote back and said they weren't taking girls," the former presidential candidate tweeted, because apparently everything has to be about her. She then expressed hope that a "new generation of little girls" will be able to reach for the stars.
Social media users immediately began to pick apart the rather far-fetched tale.

One top reply correctly noted that Clinton was born in 1947, more than 10 years before NASA was founded. Furthermore, it wasn't until 1962 that the US put an astronaut in space - making her story hard to believe.

Others pointed to Clinton's previous tall tales that were later proven to be demonstrably false, including her claim that she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

Given Clinton's shaky track record when it comes to keeping documents, several suspicious netizens demanded to see the alleged rejection letter.

The response to her childhood story wasn't completely negative, however. If Clinton is still interested in going into space, that could certainly be arranged - on condition that she stays there, a generous Twitter user suggested.