NA'SSA's Martian FIDO

~ Press Release ~ 25th December 2008 ~

The North A'Scotland Space Agency (NA'SSA) has built a Fantastically Ingeniously-Designed Object, or FIDO.

For want of a better idea, it was decided to launch FIDO in the general direction of Mars, in order to test for signs of intelligent life on the red planet. That was several weeks ago and now, despite being squillions of miles away, some photos of FIDO doing his business have been obtained. The photos are a little blurry, but this is perhaps to be expected with the digital camera stretched to the limits of technology at 3x optical zoom.

Figure 1: FIDO photographed performing on the red planet.

Figure 2: Notice FIDO's high level of sophisticated equipment.

Figure 3: FIDO is at the cutting edge of technology and engineering.

The fact that the red planet has not actually come out as red in these photos is a little disconcerting, but at least FIDO has clearly demonstrated the lack of any liquid water.

However, excitement mounted at NA'SSA when someone, shoveling snow off the drive, came up with a scientific breakthrough by suggesting that Mars might be covered in the stuff, especially as there is an uncanny resemblance to snow in these early photos. Is this Nobel Prize material? We think so. Another first: a Nobel Prize in Physics to a part-time snow-shoveller. There is absolutely no scientific evidence to support this wild and outrageous claim, of course, but what the heck, NASA dispense such nonsense all the time and if a Nobel Prize in Physics can go to someone removing pigeon droppings, then why not a snow-shoveller? Equal rights for snow-shovellers. Besides, warmongering, lying megalomaniac "Obama" received the Nobel Peace Prize for nothing, so why shouldn't our NA'SSA snow-shoveller get a prize? (Hint, hint.)

Anyway, further developments are eagerly awaited, and NASA's virtual reality department (VRD) is going to be hard pressed to compete with such an outstanding NA'SSA achievement. The VRD has had many 'firsts' in the outrageous and outlandish categories, but nothing that can so far be classified as being outstanding. This is, however, not surprising when one considers that only Britain and France were able to design and build a supersonic airliner, the American effort being simply rubbish.