(no subject)
seems like just yesterday we were scared out of our minds. the stupid astronauts were going to kill us all, we were certain, with their plutonium-launched cassini rocket to one of saturn's moons.
"yeah, we strapped 72 pounds of plutonium on this sucker. what else do you expect us to use, you cosmically-obtuse imbeciles," retorted nasa's spokesperson moments before challenging several reporters to a mysteriously termed "space fight" and thus cutting the uproarious press conference short.
keep in mind one single pound of plutonium is enough to give every living person lung cancer. the odds of rocket failure were between 1:10 and 1:20. nasa was optimistic at the time. their prediction of unspeakable disaster: 1:900. how reassuring.
when asked about the dangers of earth being obliterated by the launch, one anonymous retired astronaut said, "look, if i can't one day figure out whether titan has lakes of hydrocarbons then i don't want to go on living, anyway."
well, mankind didn't kill itself with its own curiousity; and it turns out this didn't happen yesterday. it was seven years ago. in a few minutes it's finishing its journey and landing on titan. joey and i are watching nasa tv live on the internet right now. some foreign international space alliance people are jibber-jabbering about working on this for almost twenty years.
these days i guess i'm a little more tolerant to those white-suited people (i hope that's the pc term), but it's hard to believe my brother and i have been making astronaut jokes for more than seven years. people didn't understand the life/death relevance then, and they don't understand the readjusted context now.
oh, the endlessness of meaning is more hilarious than the parallel to the infiniteness of the universe. put that in your rocket and smoke it.
"yeah, we strapped 72 pounds of plutonium on this sucker. what else do you expect us to use, you cosmically-obtuse imbeciles," retorted nasa's spokesperson moments before challenging several reporters to a mysteriously termed "space fight" and thus cutting the uproarious press conference short.
keep in mind one single pound of plutonium is enough to give every living person lung cancer. the odds of rocket failure were between 1:10 and 1:20. nasa was optimistic at the time. their prediction of unspeakable disaster: 1:900. how reassuring.
when asked about the dangers of earth being obliterated by the launch, one anonymous retired astronaut said, "look, if i can't one day figure out whether titan has lakes of hydrocarbons then i don't want to go on living, anyway."
well, mankind didn't kill itself with its own curiousity; and it turns out this didn't happen yesterday. it was seven years ago. in a few minutes it's finishing its journey and landing on titan. joey and i are watching nasa tv live on the internet right now. some foreign international space alliance people are jibber-jabbering about working on this for almost twenty years.
these days i guess i'm a little more tolerant to those white-suited people (i hope that's the pc term), but it's hard to believe my brother and i have been making astronaut jokes for more than seven years. people didn't understand the life/death relevance then, and they don't understand the readjusted context now.
oh, the endlessness of meaning is more hilarious than the parallel to the infiniteness of the universe. put that in your rocket and smoke it.