Revisionist history
"Well, I remember back in 1978 I proposed a Landsat for California ... they called me Governor Moonbeam because of that, so if they turn off the satellites, California will launch its own damn satellites."
Uh, no, that's not why at all:
The nickname was coined by Mike Royko, the famed Chicago columnist, who in 1976 said that Mr. Brown appeared to be attracting “the moonbeam vote,” which in Chicago political parlance meant young, idealistic and nontraditional.