Shaq thinks a flight to the moon is shorter than a flight to California

Playing in the NBA and flying across the country isn’t rocket science, but don’t tell Shaquille O’Neal.

Shaquille O’Neal had quite the career in the NBA before transitioning to a studio role on TNT with Inside the NBA.

The Big Aristotle has proven again and again as an analyst that he is more than capable of some serious next level thinking. He may have topped all of his previous best efforts with his attempts to determine the logistics of cross-country flight on Thursday night.

It was apparently news to O’Neal that a flight from the East Coast to California might be shorter than a flight to the moon. He reasoned that the flights should be of comparable length because he can walk out the door and see the moon, but cannot see California.

Seriously, that’s the type of logic that almost kept Christopher Columbus from discovering the Americas. Shaq really should have nailed down how long it takes to fly across the country while playing in the NBA on both coasts for close to 20 years.

The distance from New York to Los Angeles is a shade under 2,800 miles, while the moon is approximately 240,000 miles away from Earth. Even with the aid of rocket fuel and massive engines, it still took the Apollo missions over three days to reach the moon.

NASA hasn’t been sending manned flights to the moon for years, but probes have been able to approach the moon without entering its orbit in about eight hours. That’s surprisingly pretty close to the six hours it takes to fly across the country, so maybe Shaq’s logic wasn’t as far off as it seemed at first glance.

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This is why we love Shaq: his willingness to say whatever is on his mind, and play along with the jokes from his co-hosts when he says something ridiculous. Now, if Elon Musk could just hurry up and get SpaceX off the ground so that the Big Shaqtus can experience the magic of space flight. While we’re at it, let Sir Charles tag along.