« Judge Orders Lockout Lifted | Main | Cheney Goes On Rampage, Destroys Capitol »
NASA Announces New Mars Research Project
May 16, 2006
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, California (OMS) — The National Aeronautics and Space Administration today announced a new decade-long research project centering on the geology and meteorology of the planet Mars. NASA Administrator Sean O’Keeffe, speaking at a news conference here this morning, said the new research effort would center on dropping various more-irritating-than-a-hangnail “celebrities” such as Paris Hilton, Janis Dickinson or Clay Aikens from “really, really high” over the surface of Mars and measuring their speed at impact. The celebrities would be fitted with telemetry allowing scientists to measure speed, angle of impact and atmospheric composition. Orbiting satellites would analyze the spectrometric data from the clouds of dust caused by the celebrities’ sudden collision with the planet surface.
Dr. Elvis Slobinsky, professor of theoretical celebrity interaction physics at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s I Like To Wear My Michael Rennie From When Worlds Collide Uniform In Public And Let’s Face It It’s Really The Only Way To Get Women To Notice Me Even If They’re Laughing Science Center, has been asked to chair the new project. The project timeline is roughly ten years, “although we could easily run for fifty or more”, Dr. Slobinsky said in a telephone interview. “It’s not like we’ll ever run out of volunteers, what with American Idol, America’s Top Model and The Surreal Life.
Dr. Slobinsky said that at the early stages of testing have already begun. “We’ve already outfitted Paris and Ashley Simpson with prototype instrument packages and have fired them at target sites on Mars’ moons Phobos and Deimos. Paris should arrive early in 2008, Ashley a couple of months later. We’ve had preliminary talks with Gary Coleman and Emmanuel Lewis, but they’re too small for the suits. Joan Rivers, Lizzie Grubman and Nicky and Paris Hilton are scheduled for 2006—three years too late in my book, but hey, you can’t rush science.”
When asked why the project chose to use celebrities, Slobinsky responded, “Our computer modeling shows that most celebrities’ egos have properties that are an ideal ablative for re-entry, such as their incredibly light weight compared to their size. Most of them are like soap bubbles, which is why we’re so pleased to have someone of Mel Gibson’s caliber on board. We think his diamond-hard ego will protect the instrument package right up to the moment he goes splat.”
Responding to questions about getting celebrities to volunteer, Slobinsky chuckled. “Simple. We tell them Spielberg’s asked for a meeting but they have to visit him on location. They’re lined up out the door—we can’t keep them away.” When reporters asked why the project didn’t use robots or chimpanzees, however, Slobinsky recoiled. “Robots are damned expensive. You think we’re just gonna blow those up? And chimps…how cruel! That’s positively inhuman!”
Opposition to the project has already begun. Charles M. Jones, director of the Mars First! activist organization, said today that Project Hammer Time would result in “the ecological devastation of the beautiful Red Planet. These celebrities are filled with silicone, nonbiodegradable plastics and other unsavory elements—who’s to say what the long-term result might be? This makes me angry, very angry indeed,” he huffed.
Last updated by Josh on