---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 17:21:07 -0700
From: Stacey Lester <staceyl@ntserver1.photodisc.com>
To: "'proftim@speakeasy.org'" <proftim@speakeasy.org>
Subject: FW: humor for you, comrades (fwd)
> > Reuters News Release 21 July, 1997
> >
> > KOROLYOV, RUSSIA--U.S. and Russian scientists are
> increasingly
> >excited about the Mir space station project, which promises to reveal
> >more than has ever been known about the scientific relationship
> between
> >weightlessness and mortal terror.
> >
> > "By stranding our scientists on a dilapidated space station
> with
> >faulty wiring, loose hardware, and malfunctioning air systems," NASA
> >head Daniel Goldin said, "we have created extremely favorable
> conditions
> >for learning about spaceborne panic."
> >
> > The two Russians and one American on board the station are
> >reportedly terrified beyond lucidity.
> >
> > Among the groundbreaking experiments conducted on board Mir:
> a
> >June 25 collision with a cargo craft that depressurized the Spektr
> >module; last week's emergency power shortage, caused by a
> disconnected
> >cable; and the periodic release of "dry ice" steam that simulates a
> >shipboard fire. All have been deemed a huge success by agency heads.
> >
> > "They are in a constant state of what aerospace scientists
> term
> >'mind-shattering terror,' frightened for their very lives," Russian
> >mission director Vladimir Solovyov said. "And we have not even used
> >the hull-mounted Alien puppet that taps on the window yet."
> >
> > "We have also taken huge leaps in our understanding of the
> >patterns created when one wets his pants in the weightlessness of
> >space," Solovyov said. "The urine spreads out in an expanding
> sphere,
> >something we did not expect."
> >
> > Taking a break from his busy schedule, astronaut Michael
> Foale
> >told ABC News reporters: "Where is Mommy?"
> >
> > "Please tell me the access code to the Soyuz capsule,"
> Russian
> >cosmonaut Aleksandr Lazutkin said. "I would like to return to the
> >chaotic government and widespread hunger of my homeland."
> >
> > Scientists expect to gain even more useful data during an
> >experiment at 3 a.m. tomorrow. As the astronauts sleep, whirling red
> >siren lights will flood the cabin while an ear-splitting klaxon
> alarm
> >jolts them awake. Detailed scientific data will then be collected
> on such
> >variables as open weeping, defecation, and hair loss.
> >
> >
>