netjeff.com Humor collection Al Gore to Fly on Shuttle

     NASA News
     National Aerobics and
     Spacy Administration

     Lyndon B. Joplin Space Center
     Houston, Texas 77058
     AC 713 483-3111
     ________________________________________________
     For Release
     Terry White
     Friday, March 31, 1995
     Hold for tomorrow (Saturday) 8:00 AM

     RELEASE NO. 95-025

     VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE TO FLY ON SHUTTLE MISSION

     NASA officials gleefully announced today that Vice President Al Gore
     has accepted NASA's invitation to fly aboard a space shuttle mission
     this summer as an observer. His participation in the mission will go a
     long way toward enhancing his appreciation of space technology, and
     will allow him to assess the unique global environmental monitoring
     capabilities of crewed space vehicles. One flight plan option under
     consideration to save money is to toss him out the door in the
     direction of the Mir space station where the Russians can then return
     him to Earth, if he's not too far away already.

     The current planned mission for the visit is STS-69, an otherwise
     excruciatingly boring five-man mission in mid-summer slated to carry
     the OOPS-SPAS pseudoscience satellite (designed to be dropped and
     picked up again),  the TEDIUS-IV video drivel relay station, the SLEEP
     SHIELD space parasol, fourteen mid-deck payloads whose original
     sponsors have already died or emigrated, and a target for controlled
     anti-missile laser testing from the Air Force's Battlestar Beachcomber
     test center in Hawaii. On a non-interference basis, crewmembers may
     also perform an EVA to test lens-cleaning and guide-dog training
     procedures for the next Hubble Repair Mission, and to assess zero-G
     dwarf-tossing procedures in preparation for the Interminable Space
     Station.

     A special accelerated training program for the Vice President has
     already been designed based on experience with similar politician
     missions in the past. Gore is expected to know how to use his seat
     belt, turn cabin lights on/off, prepare food, and use the $30,000,000
     space toilet without soiling himself. "Politicians have used $1000
     bills for toilet paper for years," noted NASA senior training official
     Ronnie Frank, "so he won't have to learn much that is new to him."
     During the course of the flight Mr. Gore will be given a Boy Scout
     utility knife and told to re-invent the toilet.

     Problems with personality characteristics had tainted earlier STS
     flights by visitors. "One politician was an humorless obsessive",
     noted one top NASA psychologist dryly, "while another was a hysteric
     idiot." Fortunately, concerns will not arise during this guest
     mission, Washington experts insist, due to Gore's utter lack of any
     noticeable personality characteristics whatsoever.  NASA has also
     announced plans to rename JSC's Bldg 32 "Space Environmental
     Simulation Chamber" as the "Al Gore Memorial Vacuum Chamber," in his
     honor, once the flight ends successfully.

     Safety concerns from politician shuttle flights were highlighted by
     worrisome incidents such as the one in 1985-6 when a well-groomed
     congressman (WGC) sought desperately to get in front of the closed
     circuit television (CCTV) camera D in the payload bay (PLB) during a
     transmission to earth (TTE). Disregarding the inconvenient fact that
     the PLB was unpressurized, the frantic congressman pounded and clawed
     at the latches of the aft hatch in the airlock (AHA) and had to be
     physically restrained with gray tape (GT), according to a secret
     post-flight report (PFR) by the flight crew (FC). Gore will be given a
     full-time portable thigh-mounted television monitor (CCTV) to prevent
     any repetition of this potentially dangerous "media coverage
     withdrawal syndrome" (MCWS), a hitherto unknown effect of  spaceflight
     on politicians.

     Earlier NASA planning had vaguely slated the STS-69 mission to carry
     the "Teacher in Space" flight participant, Ms. Barbara Morgan, who had
     been the backup to Christa McAuliffe on Challenger in 1986. However,
     once it had become known in Washington, D.C., that there existed the
     possibility of an outside guest flying into orbit, the requirement
     that it be a politician quickly overpowered the long-forgotten NASA
     promise to America's teachers. "Morgan is used to getting pushed aside
     and she's a good sport about it," one NASA official explained about
     the latest frustration for the patient Teacher-in-Space designee. "But
     Gore only gets pushed aside for Hillary." In this case, however, Ms.
     Rodham-Clinton had already declined NASA's initial offer of a shuttle
     flight due to her more pressing business, and in fact had suggested
     Gore might be available for launching in her place.


     END

netjeff.com Humor collection Al Gore to Fly on Shuttle