Tuesday 31 March 2009

Space Station Bog Standard Regulations

Space - the final frontier - where the petty jealousies of a materialistic corrupt Earth, and other planetary concerns like unpaid mortgages and credit card bills, were left behind.
However, space is no longer the haven of celestial harmony it once was now the shit is about to hit the Cosmic fan.

The International Space Station, previously a place where astronauts would share a campfire, food and facilities, then kiss and cuddle in true male bonding fashion, is said to be embroiled in a Cold War-like Mexican stand-off due asinine political differences between Moscow and Washington DK (District of Kenya).

A Russian cosmonaut has complained he is no longer allowed to piss in the NASA toilet or ride a NASA exercise bike around the space station.

Gennady Vodkalova, 95, told Russia's Derr’mo Gazeta newspaper the lack of sharing was pissing everyone off. The veteran cosmonaut said the problem was due to the ISS becoming a more PFI commercial operation with Earth-based bureaucrats counting the pennies instead of sowing communal good will.

For several years after his first space mission in 1998, Vodkalova and his American colleagues worked in total harmony, he told the newspaper.
But space missions became more commercial in 2003 and Moscow started billing Washington for sending its astronauts into space. Other nations responded in kind.

Colonel Vodkalova told the Derr’mo Gazeta that officials had rejected his request to work out on the NASA exercise bike during their pre-training mission and told him to go and steal one of his own.
Worse than that, they said US and Russian crew members should use their own "national toilets", with the Russian crew being banned from using the luxurious NASA astro-loo and having to shit in a binbag then ditch it out of the airlock into space.

“Have you ever tried to take a dump while you are weightless and floating around? Even if I wear my boots and squat then the turds go drifting off. Imagine the mess to clear up if we go out and get a Vindaloo take-away from the Indian space station the previous night.”

Worse still, the regulations now required US and Russian cosmonauts to eat their own rations, he added. “The Yanks have Big Mac’s with double cheese - and Hershey bars. All we get is bliny, okroshka and pelmeni.

Until now only three astronauts lived on the International Space Station at any one time. But last Saturday a Russian Soyuz rocket blasted off from Kazakhstan to ferry Colonel Vodkalova and two other crew-members to the ISS.

Cosmonaut Vodkalova, the captain of the ship, had to manually dock the vessel at 13:04 GMT after the onboard nuclear reactor went on the blink again, mission control spokesman Valery Fuctifino told Reuters.
"At the last stage of the docking process, the crew had to switch into manual mode, which Colonel Vodkalova is used to doing. This is not unusual for Russian-built spaceship to fuck up," Fuctifino said. "Now everything is fine - until it breaks again."

While doubling the number of crew will allow more scientific research to be carried out, it will also mean there will be less room for visitors – and a queue for potty time.

Among the new crew was US zillionaire space tourist Charlie Simonyi, 60, a Polish virtual plumber (CORGI-registered) who paid $35 million for his 13-day trip, during which he will help erect the Russian's new Galacta-Crapper outside porta-loo, unblock the main bog’s septic tank and check out the double glazing.

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