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The space junk car-tasrophe

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Oi! You can't park here!

It would appear that the human race has reached peak stupid. 

No longer content with dumping our unwanted junk all around the planet we call home, we’re now firing it in to space and littering new parts of the solar system we haven’t previously made a gigantic mess of.

Whilst many people are in awe that Elon Musk, the man behind Tesla and CEO of SpaceX, has launched a car towards Mars, you do have to wonder what sort of message we’re sending out in to the cosmos.

Musk decided to fire monster rocket, Falcon Heavy, with his cherry red Tesla car as a payload, to test the capabilities of the new design. That he was only 50-50 on the chances of it working is alarming enough, when you consider the vast sums of money and energy involved.

Even more disturbing for any ‘little green men’ his motor should happen to encounter on it’s whimsical journey, there’s a an astronaut dummy at the wheel, the stereo is cranking out David Bowie’s “Life on Mars” on loop, and Douglas Adams’ legendary “Don’t Panic” from The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy is emblazoned on the dashboard.

Three things could happen here: The aliens decide we’re inherently unstable, and give us a wide berth; They conclude anyone that stupid must also be very dangerous and destroy us with lasers; Mankind gets a large insurance claim after hitting their flying saucer and giving them whiplash.

Space needs some new signage. How about “No sky tipping”?

This post first appeared as the second piece in my column/page in The Mail and the News & Star, on the 9th of February 2018, where it as re-titled as "Idiocy firing on all cylinders", which is rather good.

(CD A-Z: Midge Ure - "10")
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