Scientists vow to "come back when it's less busy".
Trepanning's Martian Twin Town |
Scientists at Trepanning's Mars Explorer Mission have found new evidence that life exists in a recently discovered twin town on the red planet. But the cock-a-hoop boffins were crestfallen when their Remote Explorer vehicle was unable to send back the conclusive clotted cream sample because of long queues at the Martian village's Post Office.
"I thought it was shite", said Lead Cream Scientist Angarrack Malabar, "we've spent thousands of Truros on this mission so we should have sent up some International Reply Coupons to get the samples back, but oh no, we can't have that, can we? Huh?"
"You bastards: I quit", added the former Lead Cream Scientist.
It is widely believed that Reply Coupons were mooted early on in the mission, but were ruled out on account of their weight. "On a mission of this sort, every last gram is crucial", says Head of Weight, John Bonham. "It's all payload, payload and payload. Nothing else matters. We had to scale down many of the Research Unit's experiments because they were just too heavy. Or too dull."
Flight Director Dave Bagel, formerly of Trepanobus Coach Tours, agrees: "Yeah. a lot of their experiments were far too heavy and there were some things that were much more important and, much more importantly, much less dull. Things like maps, wine gums and a stewardess to serve light refreshments, crisps, biscuits and hot and cold beverages."
Meanwhile, Mission Control have vowed to return next year with specially developed miniature rockets that can accelerate a single pot of clotted cream to escape velocity so that it can make its way back for scientific evaluation. Timing is crucial for this second mission as flight technicians are planning to slingshot the cream around Jupiter "for a bit of a laugh".