Boldly go where no man wants to go

A White House panel of independent space experts says NASA's return-to-the-moon plan just won't fly.

The problem is money. The expert panel estimates it would cost about $3 billion a year beyond NASA's current $18 billion annual budget.

"Under the budget that was proposed, exploration beyond Earth is not viable," panel member Edward Crawley, a professor of aeronautics at MIT, told The Associated Press Tuesday. “So we have decided to do some planetary exploration right here on earth at the most alien locations we could find. First up – Mission: Detroit.”

“We tried to think of places here in the United States that were desolate, alien, cold, dark, and dank, with a landscape incapable of sustaining human life. Detroit was an obvious, unanimous choice.”

“We plan on using a white Chevy Volt covered in NASA stickers as our version of the “lunar rover.” Instead of “astronauts’ we will have “terranauts” who will explore the vast wasteland of Detroit, collecting data.”

Prior to sending in a manned mission several unmanned probe vehicles have been sent in, gathering samples from the area. “We have retrieved and are studying some very interesting items”, Crawley stated. “Empty crack vials, used condoms, broken 40 oz. malt liquor bottles, and the occasional Obama bumper sticker, still attached to a rusty bumper, have been collected. It is fascinating!”

Crawley hopes that this initial mission will lead to more in the future. “We have been sending out probes to other possible locations. We really want to investigate President Obama’s hometown of Chicago, with special emphasis on the South Side of the city. Unfortunately all of our probes keep getting shot up.”