SPACED OUT!

We go to the Final Frontier...

Gnorts*, Friends!
     There sure has been alot of news from space just recently... 
The landing on Mars, the problems with the Mir space station,
including the famous 'what-happens-if-we-unplug-this-cable' oops,
and the long Space Shuttle mission have all made space the big
story of the past few weeks.  The wonderful pictures helped, too! 
If you have web access, you can find many of the Mars pictures at
the JPL mirror site:

          http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/

     Now, the one question I have is: why are these top
scientists naming the rocks on Mars after such third-rate cartoon
characters?  What, no 'Bugs', 'Donald' or 'Tom & Jerry'?  Not
even a 'Speed Racer' or 'Ultraman'?  Makes you wonder a little
about those science guys...  Another interesting sidelight of all
of the attention to space is that Mattel Sojourner 'HotWheels'
models are selling like crazy in toy stores.  Now _NASA_ is
designing toys for _Mattel_?!   What's next, 'Mission Specialist
Barbie'?
     Special Thanks this week go out to: Kerry Miller, Peter
Adler, Jerry Taff, Howard Lesniak, Dale Frederickson and Beth
Butler.  As always, I appreciate your contributions and input to
Sunday Funnies.   Enough Earthy comments - check that CO2 and LOX
levels are nominal, set VOX to on, switch to VHF high gain and
we're off.   (Hmm... I guess I may have watched 'Apollo 13' a
couple of times too many.)
     Have a great week!


   * See the last story this week for the explanation...

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SUNFUN CONTEST...
--------------
     Nobody guessed that the "Frog legs will become the rage in
fast-food restaurants" and "Eighty percent of Americans will
totally shave their heads" and "Volcanic eruptions in August will
create a new land bridge joining Cuba with America" stories in
'THE SUNDAY FUNNIES: Future Imperfect' of July 6th were phoneys. 
Those stories were actually invented by some college students in
a parody of tabloid newspaper psychics that they called the
'Weekly World News'.  I didn't know this at the time.  Of course,
their made up stories sounded pretty believable compared to
"Madonna marries an oil sheik" and "Peter Jennings does the
evening news live from space" stories that were 'real' psychic
predictions.  In any event, thanks for your entries, and we'll
have to save the prizes for a future contest.
                                                       bbb

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SPACE SUIT DEPARTMENT...
---------------------
     SAN`A, Yemen - Three Yemeni men claiming ownership of Mars
have filed a lawsuit against NASA for landing on 'their' planet
without permission.  Adam Ismail, Mustafa Khalil and Abdullah
al-Umari filed documents in a Yemeni court that they say proves
their claim, according to the weekly Al-Thawri newspaper.
     "We inherited the planet from our ancestors 3,000 years
ago," the Arabic-language paper quoted the men as saying in one
of the documents.
     NASA's Pathfinder spacecraft landed on Mars on July 4, and
its Sojourner rover began exploring the planet and sending back
photos and data for analysis.
     The three claim that NASA needs their approval to explore
the planet Mars.  The plaintiffs demanded the immediate halt to
all exploration until the court verdict.  They also asked that
the court order NASA not to reveal any information about Mars
atmosphere, surface or gravity without their approval.
     Richard Cook, Pathfinder mission manager at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said, "Mars is for the
whole world to explore and to understand.'' (AP)
          [ Of course, that's not really what Mr. Cook
          said, but we're being diplomatic... ]


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ALIEN HEADLINES...
---------------
   Last August, a biologist in Ottawa, Canada named David Brez
Carlisle told a meeting of geologists in Waterloo that the exotic
amino acids found in several rocks from space, which are
considered evidence that extraterrestrial life exists, are not
what they seem. Carlisle said the space rocks he has examined
contain not the exotic amino acids but flakes of human dandruff,
which have a similar chemical makeup.
          [ Flakey aliens, maybe? ]

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NASA BITES BACK...
---------------
     The following newspaper article appeared in "Florida Today"
on November 20, 1996:

     Activists vow to stop Cassini Spacecraft launch
     -----------------------------------------------
     CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Anti-nuclear activists pledged
     Tuesday to wade across alligator-infested swamps and
     parachute onto a launch pad to stop the planned launch
     next year of a NASA plutonium-powered spacecraft....

     The following "advertisement" circulated on NASA's E-mail
system shortly later:

     WANTED TO BUY: 10,000 alligators. No reasonable offer
     refused. Transportation costs negotiable.


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THE WRITE STUFF DEPARTMENT...
--------------------------
     In the rush to get into space in the 1960's, NASA conducted
an amazing amount of research to design and construct a ball
point pen that would function in zero gravity.  After determining
that ordinary pens couldn't function in space, they spent over a
year of study and nearly a million dollars, to come up with the
'Astronaut Pen'.  A version of the pen was even distributed by
the Fisher Pen Company as a novelty item here on Earth.
     The Russians, faced with the same problem, used a pencil.


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LIVE FROM MARS...
--------------
          AIR FORCE DENIES STORIES OF UFO CRASH
          -------------------------------------
     Valles Marineris, Mars - A spokesperson for Mars Air Force
denounced as false rumors that an alien space craft had crashed
in the desert near Ares Vallis on Friday.  Appearing at a press
conference today, General Rgrmrmy The Lesser, stated that "the
object was, a harmless high-altitude weather balloon, not an
alien spacecraft."
     The story broke late Friday night when a major stationed at 
Ares Vallis Air Force Base contacted the Marineris Daily Record
with a story about a strange, balloon-shaped object which
allegedly came down in the nearby desert, "bouncing" several
times before coming to a stop, then "deflating in a sudden
explosion."  Minutes later, General Rgrmrmy contacted the Daily
Record telepathically to contradict this earlier report.
     General Rgrmrmy stated that hysterical stories of a
detachable vehicle roaming across the desert were completely
untrue.  The general public, however,  has been slow to accept
the Air Force's explanation of recent events, preferring to
speculate on the "other-worldly" nature of the crash debris. 
Many people seem to prefer a juicy conspiracy story to the boring
truth that there is no life on other planets.


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SPACE SPAM
----------

  Scientists Decode the First Message From an Alien Civilization!
  --------------------------------------------------------------

>    SIMPLY SEND 6 TIMES 10 TO THE 50 ATOMS OF HYDROGEN TO
>    THE STAR SYSTEM AT THE TOP OF THE LIST, CROSS OFF THAT
>    STAR SYSTEM, THEN PUT YOUR STAR SYSTEM AT THE BOTTOM 
>    OF THE LIST AND SEND IT TO 100 OTHER STAR SYSTEMS. 
>    WITHIN ONE TENTH OF A GALACTIC ROTATION YOU WILL 
>    RECEIVE ENOUGH HYDROGEN TO POWER YOUR CIVILIZATION 
>    UNTIL ENTROPY REACHES MAXIMUM! IT REALLY WORKS!


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MOSCOW, WE HAVE A PROBLEM...
-------------------------
     The Russian Mir space station has had so many problems
recently that it seems like all of them must have been made
public by now, but there were a series of problems earlier that
showed where things were headed.
     For one thing, one of the Russian officers on Mir was nearly
arrested on charges that he had failed to report for his Army
reserve training.  Apparently, one part of the Russian Army
didn't know he was orbiting the Earth in Mir and not living in
his Moscow apartment.
     And late last year, the cosmonauts were REALLY happy to see
the supply ship, which had been delayed by booster rocket
problems.  The toilet waste tanks on Mir were almost full, and
the supply ship connection is the only way to empty the tanks.
          [ I guess just holding it 'til the next gas
          station is out, right? ]

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GNORTS, Y'ALL!
-------------
     There's a group of people in a weird corner of CompuServe
having an argument about the proper way to greet an alien
arriving on Earth.  Now, you may think this just means that they
have _WAY_ too much time on their hands, but they really take it
very seriously.  One guy is absolutely convinced that the correct
alien greeting is 'GNORTS'.
     Why gnorts?  Well, he says it has to do with the government
conspiracy about the 1968 Moon landing.  He claims that the
landing was just a cover story and the 'astronauts' were really
aliens.  (I am not making this up.)  So then the proper greeting
has to be Gnorts because the commander of the mission was 'Neil
Armstrong'.  You see, that name is only another part of the
government disinformation, which you can easily detect by
spelling the name backwards:
                    Gnorts, Mr. AlieN.

     So THAT, he says, must be the proper greeting for alien
visitors.
          [ The rest of us think that guy is yzarc! ]

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