Difficile est satiram non scribere.
(It is difficult not to write satire.)
--Juvenal
Spacecraft to take suicide plunge today
NASA sending Galileo to its destruction in Jupiter's atmosphere
MICHAEL STROH
Baltimore Sun
WASHINGTON - After eight years surveying Jupiter and its moons, NASA is giving its pioneering Galileo spacecraft an unusual but fitting sendoff.
The space agency is steering Galileo on a suicide course toward Jupiter, the giant gas planet whose mysteries it unraveled.
The 2 1/2-ton probe will plunge into the thick Jovian atmosphere today at 3:49 p.m. EDT, disintegrating moments later from the friction generated by its 108,000 mph free-fall.
Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who have planned Galileo's demise for more than two years, say the craft's fuel tanks are nearly dry and its radiation-fried electronics are faltering. But they vow that Galileo will collect science data all the way in.
Galileo's 35th and final orbit of Jupiter will be a victory lap for a spacecraft that gave its creators fits, then surpassed their expectations. After near-crippling mechanical failures en route, the spacecraft rebounded to rewrite most of what scientists knew about the makeup of Jupiter and its moons.
One of Galileo's own discoveries sealed its fate: signs of briny oceans churning beneath the frozen crust of Europa and two other Jovian moons. Fearing that the fuel-starved craft might accidentally crash into one of them -- possibly spreading germs that would undermine future searches for life -- NASA decided to destroy Galileo.
That's the official story, at least. Muskrat News has discovered that the decision on where and how to dispose of Galileo involved some heated debates in the Cabinet. "Rumsfeld was all for smacking it right into Europa," said one source too chicken to use his name. "He thought it would be a non-too subtle warning to France and Germany on the eve of the UN vote on Iraq."
Nonetheless, proliferation concerns aborted that idea. "We made such a fuss about WMD in Iraq, and then somebody pointed out that Galileo contains 49.5 pounds of Plutonium, more than enough to make a bomb," said another White House staffer. "We checked, and the primitive life forms on Europa do not adhere t the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty, have never been expected by the IAEA, and are too far away to bomb on a regular basis. So we decided that giving them free plutonium probably wasn't a great idea. They may be primitive, even unicellular life forms, but you never know. Heck, the Pakistanis figured it out, and the North Koreans will sell designs and parts to anybody."
Asked if there were concerns that some form of life might exist inside Jupiter's gaseous atmosphere, and that it might resent NASA hurling flaming radioactive space debris at them, a NASA spokesrobot replied "What are they going to do about it? Come and get us? Ooooh, I'm scared. Well, if the Jovians think they're man enough, they can come down and file form 2399Z/ESJCF, the Extraterrestrial Space Junk Complaint Form, and we'll get back to them in a year or two.
(Remember, Kids, the part in bold is actual 100% news-flavored media product. The rest is the fakey part.)
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