You wouldn't think they could, but they have. They've tarnished space.
First, astronaut Lisa Nowak tries to kidnap Colleen Shipman, another female astronaut, in a row over yet another astronaut, William Ofelein. All three parties have other spouses. Way to open new frontiers for women, Lisa. Apparently she drove hundreds of miles for her bunny boiling moment, wearing official astronaut diapers on the way so she wouldn't have to stop for a piss.
Now party or parties unknown have sabotaged a computer destined for the International Space Station. And most depressingly of all, it's emerged that astronauts have flown drunk. Yes, on the Space Shuttle. And NASA knew, and let them.
The word that leaps to mind for these shenanigans is 'earthbound'. In fact, it's so earthbound it's positively pedestrian. Short of finding out the "Win a seat on the space shuttle" phone-in was actually won by Dubya's second cousin, I'm really not sure how they could have disappointed us more.
The rest of us are all out here doing our bit, you know. Why I didn't even know how many n's there were in shenanigans, so I looked it up. I oculd have just winged it and hoped for the best, but no. I knew people were all counting on me, so I went the extra mile. And I'm stuck down here with all you peasants. These people get to orbit the Earth, for Christ's sake. Just lay off the firewater for a bit, and save the shagging for the rest of your life. You'll be spending it at the bottom of the gravity well, you'll need the distraction.
Elsewhere, there's been some floods, apparently. I do follow the normal news a bit, you might be surprised to learn. Although it might have shown up a bit more in my feeds if they'd come up with a headline like "Anti-flood nanobots deployed by atheist Mars rover". I was amused by the suggestion on NewsBiscuit that they should do a charity single, and call it "Do they know it's summertime at all?"
http://smilingdave.wordpress.com
29/07/07 @ 19:00