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Lunatic Ravings - 01/26/04
By Stephen Johnson
Published each Monday |
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This week:
High on Fire---"Surrounded by Thieves"
Last week:
Dimmu Borgir---"Death Cult Armageddon"
(For some reason, Mr. Postthecolumns man decided to cut out what I was listening to as I slaved over last weeks
column. I don't know if it's because he has a problem with the words "death", "cult" and/or
"armageddon" or if it's just because he's just plain stupid.)
Many times I have tried to work for NASA but have been turned down every time for different reasons ranging from
not having the proper degree or education to being mentally unbalanced.
Even though I have the greatest space ideas under the sun, NASA always sees fit to hire people who have great ideas
on paper but, when carried out, have become failures.
I submitted a proposal regarding a manned flight to Mars. I explained that we could send a spaceship full of hardened
criminals who could not only analyze samples from Mars but also attack any alien life form that posed a threat.
Instead, NASA decided to build a rover costing trillions and trillions of dollars that ended up looking like something
built from an Erector Set. When I first heard the news of the rover and the money spent to build one, I figured
that I could come up with a more cost efficient plan.
3 million radio controlled vehicles would need to be purchased from Radio Shack. 3 million is a good, solid number
since there is a great possibility that some of the vehicles would break down during the flight to Mars. 3 million
would provide some additional insurance.
VEHICLE COST: $179,850,000.00 (3 million vehicles the average price of $59.95 per unit.)
Next would be tax, unless NASA can get some sort of tax discount since they are a government agency. But, just
to be safe, we'll include tax.
TAX: $11,690, 205.00 (average tax of 6.5%)
TOTAL SO FAR: $191,540,250.00
The vehicles would be loaded into a specially built holding bay padded with those NASA approved mattresses made
from that special polymer blend. This will help keep the jostle level down so more radio controlled vehicles could
survive the trip.
MATTRESS COST: $0.00 (It is NASA approved, therefore FREE)
TOTAL SO FAR: Still only $191,540,250.00
When the ship reaches Mars, it will hover a foot or so of the planet and open the doors to the holding bay and
the radio controlled vehicles will gracefully fall to the surface. At Mission Control the NASA technicians will
begin turning on the remote controls which they hold and soon a few million vehicles on Mars will start receiving
their commands from Earth. Of course, there will be a cost for the batteries on earth, but the batteries in the
vehicles will pose no problems since batteries have been proven to last over 873 times longer on Mars than on Earth.
It's
true. Go ahead and look it up.
BATTERY COST: $5,640,000 (4 batteries per remote control unit @ .47 each, times 3,000,000 units.)
TOTAL COST SO FAR: $197,180,250.00
To get pictures of Mars, cameras would need to be installed on each vehicle. Since I'm looking to cut costs, I
think digital cameras on each vehicle would work since we really don't need to see the pictures right away because
most pictures of Mars are quite boring. (How the pictures are taken will be figured out by the rocket scientists
at NASA)
CAMERA COST: $539,850,000.00 (3 million digital cameras @ $179.95 each.)
CAMERA BATTERY COST: $59,850,000.00 (3 million battery packs @ $19.95
each.)
TOTAL COST SO FAR: $796,880,250.00
Odds are at least half of the 3 million vehicles will respond to Mission Control. Also beneficial is knowing that
these vehicles will go much faster than, say, 9 FEET IN 8 DAYS. There will probably have to be some sort of tracking
device added to each vehicle, so I am going to add a few more dollars in order to make my cost seem much more realistic.
RADAR COST: $747,000,000.00 (3 million radar things @ $249.00 each.)
TOTAL COST SO FAR: $1,543,880,250.00
Add a couple of million for incidentals and the grand total is:
$1,545,880,250.00
As you can see, this is much cheaper than trillion and trillions of dollars plus we'd be using faster vehicles
and wouldn't have to worry about one breaking down since we would have a couple million others to turn to.
But this is all a moot point since NASA went with the Erector Set rover and look what happened. I'm sure there'll
be someone who'll notice the brilliance of my plan and call me, begging me to come and work for NASA.
We'll just have to see if I do.
COMING NEXT:
Ah, the air I breathe.
Email Stephen!
snide_remarks@theweirdcrap.com |
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