The Sky is Falling

The sky is falling. And I’m not just being a Henny Penny (a.k.a. Chicken Little). I don’t want to be one of those doomsday people because with Harold Camping and the Mayan Prophesies, it’s seems as though there’s a person around every corner with a doomsday theory. 

With the last ‘world ending event’ of Hurricane Irene, as the storm waters rose, I avoided all of the bread buying and toilet paper hoarding at the grocery store because apparently, world ending events make us eat sandwiches and poop a lot. My storm preparedness had me bypassing the Shop-Rite, closing my windows, and watching A Perfect Storm.  

This world ending event is different because the sky is, quite literally, falling. Well it’s not exactly the sky but it is a space satellite. You might ask: What is this satellite? Why is it falling and what was keeping up there all this time? Will it threaten the survival of humanity? Will it help me get better cell phone reception? These are some of the alarming questions raised by NASA’s UARS (Un-Able to Recover Satellite).

With the cancellation of the space shuttle program and no news on what program will replace it, NASA (National Astronomers Sitting on their Axes or Axises for you English buffs) needs something to replace the news about the shuttle and there is no bad press. NASA did hint that if the space shuttle program hadn't been canceled, they’d grab the satellite with one of the shuttles but their rocket boosters are unofficially tied.

News reports say the UARS should hit anytime between Friday and Sunday but they’re not exactly sure when because, due to budget cuts, NASA had to fire everyone who knew anything about science, math or astronomy. The best guess they could give was “sometime before the Monday morning rush hour and somewhere in the northern or southern hemisphere but not Antarctica or the North Pole.”

Meteorologists had little comment since, “This is a satellite, not a meteor. It’s bad enough you have us covering weather too but a six-ton school bus in outer space, give us a break. Leave that shit for the traffic guy.” 

The satellite has a 1 in 300,000,000,000 chance of hitting anyone or anything of consequence but we need to be alarmed because we haven’t had a legitimate reason to sell newspapers in the past few weeks and we need a newsworthy event to move more toilet paper and bread as the grocery stores are finally fully stocked again.  

So if you’re going to be in any of the inhabitable areas between 57 degrees north latitude and 57 degrees south latitude between now and Monday morning, it’s best to stay with a friend. And it seems we owe Henny Penny an apology.