The Clunker Shot Over the Moon

By Buster McNutt

Oh, it is SO ON, Elon Musk! Seriously? Spending a billion dollars to develop a “heavy lift” rocket, and for its first 90 million dollar launch, using your own personal Tesla Roadster as the cargo! News Flash: If you think it’s hard to find recharging stations here on earth…. I’m thinking this is in no way going to help its resale value.

So the plan is that the car will orbit the sun, and then swing around Mars, and then head back to circle the earth in around 2073, and then head back toward the Sun — good thing those Tesla’s come with unlimited mileage for the initial owner! And, we should mention, there is an “ever so small” chance that it won’t actually circle the earth but actually slam into it at a speed of just over 10,000 miles an hour. This is because of the autopilot “limp home mode” built into all these vehicles. It’s like going on vacation, getting 50 miles down the road, and having your wife ask if you remembered to turn off the stove. I can just see Elon, as the rocket blasts off and clears the tower, turning to the mission’s HLD (Head Launch Daddy) and saying, “Hmmm, did we remember to turn off the automatic limp home mode so that in 55 years or so it won’t crash into the earth and wipe out most of the Southern United States? Just asking….” But, look on the bright side; maybe then THE Ohio State would have a chance to win a national football championship, or at least get to the playoffs. Nah, never happen.

Come on, guys! Channel your inner Dave Ramsey! I mean, this could have been done for a whole lot less money and with a way more meaningful and safer cargo. I know what you’re thinking (and you are correct), I’m talking about sending up a 1986 Buick Estate Wagon with a full family of crash-test dummies and their crash-test dummy dog, Toto, strapped inside, a bobble-head Danika Patrick doll in a hula skirt super-glued to the dash, and “Dr. Demento’s Greatest Hits” playing on the eight track.

Wouldn’t it be so cool if Aliens on a routine crop circle/cattle mutation/Billy Bob Thornton abduction mission came upon the Space-Estate Wagon just as Fish Heads or maybe Pencil Neck Geek started blasting out of the Harmon Kardon Studio Fours? As reoccurring dreams go, that has to be one of my favorites. As opposed to the one about being reincarnated and having to choose between coming back as Nancy Pelosi and Bernie Sanders love child, the post-27th alien abduction Billy Bob Thornton, or that giant tapeworm in the second season “X-Files” episode. Oh wait, I think that was Billy Bob Thornton after his 27th alien abduction in that episode.

The problem would actually be the cost of launching the car, as my bank account is a little shy of the $90 million needed to rent the rocket, by about $90 million, give or take, say $90 million. I doubt Elon would take a check anyway; he’s always been more of a PayPal guy. But thanks to that piece of peanut-brutal that cracked my crown and sent me back to the dentist where their current two-year old copy of “National Geographic” had an article about a volcano on a remote island in Fiji that has erupted every full moon for hundreds of years, sending volcanic ash over 100 miles in the air, which technically is the edge of space, we are in business! So if it can spew ash into space, with a few modifications, it should certainly be able to spew the Estate Wagon up there as well.

Actually, history is on my side here. According to ancient legends (always the best kind), centuries ago natives inhabited the island, and used the volcano for sacrifices to their Sacred God of Dairy Products, ElsieLatte. Each spring they would build a platform on top of the volcano, to let the pressure build up. Then they would find a group of ten virgin cows, and tie them on top of the platform. When it blew, the cows were launched into orbit. To this day the school children throughout Fiji study this event as the Herd Shot Round the World. I think we have something in our country’s early history that is a bit like that. Or maybe not.

This will be just the start. With our low-cost volcano launching platform in place, I can see a fleet of retired school busses being welded together and spewed into space as low-cost space stations. We’d first convert them to natural gas, and load them up with gas cylinders. Once in space we’d use that YouTube video of the 1966 “Mr. Science” episode where he shows how to make a fuel cell out of Honeycomb cereal, tongue depressors, and those sticky little traps you use to catch mice. Then it would be a simple matter to run the natural gas through the fuel cell to create oxygen for the astronauts inside the station. Solar cells would provide all the power needed. Other than the “tail attachment” mechanism for the zero-gravity toilets, all this stuff is readily available in the hardware/automotive products section at any of the larger Dollar General stores. And I’m not totally convinced those sticky little mouse traps couldn’t help out with the ZGT tail attachment issue. This could be the space generation’s Duck Tape!

Over time we could join enough of these space buses together to create cities capable of holding thousands of people. Since we all learned in school that “nature abhors a vacuum” and “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction,” the reaction to thousands of zero gravity toilets flushing at the same time would create, that’s right, my little space buckos and buckoettes, artificial plus gravity! The end of human floaters! No more Velcro treadmilling! No more Jell-O in your hair! Where is the downside to this? Well, of course, with artificial gravity all the zero-gravity toilets would, at best, quit working, and at least for a while you may have swapped one type of floaters for another.

Well, yeah, there’s that.