US vice president ignores Nasa's 'do not touch' sign

US Vice-President Mike Pence has apologised to NASA after a photo of him touching a piece of space flight equipment that read “Critical Space Flight Hardware. Please don't touch” went viral on social media.

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Pence was visiting the Kennedy Space Center in Florida when he placed his hand on a piece of hardware despite the large sign that asked people not to. Twitter user Mike Rundle posted a photo of the Vice-President captioned, “C’mon dude, really?”

He later apologised to Nasa on Twitter, joking that Florida Senator Marco Rubio ‘dared’ him to do it. Nasa, in turn, assured Pence that the equipment was in need of a clean anyway.

Nasa said in a statement that "procedures require the hardware to be cleaned before tiles are bonded to the spacecraft, so touching the surface is absolutely okay."

Pence also posted another tweet mocking the incident, replacing NASA hardware with a porcupine in the photo.

If the hardware was not OK to touch, it "would have had a protective cover over it", Nasa added. The original photo had gone viral within hours with some social media users criticising Pence for ignoring the sign.

"Good to know our vice president has the self control of a sugar-charged third grader on a field trip," wrote one Twitter user.


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Here’s how Twitter reacted to the incident:

"After six months at Trump's side, Mike Pence quietly envies the capsule for its journey to the cold, tranquil emptiness of space," wrote @KevinMKruse.