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Is there life on NASA?

Anthony Sharwood

by Anthony Sharwood

02 Dec 03:52pm

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Filed under: Extra Terrestrials, Nasa, Satire, Space

57 comments

The FIFA World Cup bid announcement won’t be the only huge story tonight. In America, at 4am eastern Australian time, NASA appears certain to announce it has found signs of life on a moon of Saturn.

Nope, no evidence of life here. They'll still try to kill each other, though, just like real American humans. Picture: AP

No doubt it’ll just be boring microbes or, you know, some kind of shapeless Lara Bingle monster. But hey, life’s life. Well done, NASA. Thank you in advance, as they never, ever say in the classics.

Only one question now remains. Is there any evidence of life in NASA itself? Let’s examine the evidence…

Nope. No way known can this guy’s heart be beating with his diet of Maccas and Coke.

Are they seagulls on the big screen? Image: AP

The big giveaway here is the lack of a giant drink holder in this Mars exploration capsule out in the Nevada desert. This humanoid looks real, but we’re not fooled. Also, no human uses a joystick left handed

Look, exciting rocks! Image: AFP

There may once have been actual humans working for NASA, but this giant orange sucky slurpy monster devoured them all.

What could possibly go wrong in here?

These aren’t real people either. They’re Lego characters gathered around a Lego computer

I've got this great idea for a TV series. It's called Mad Men in space. Picture: AP

The first photographic evidence of the much-theorised-about giant space potato

Hey, Homer could make potato chips out of this. Photo: AP

Next week’s photo essay (if enough of you ask nicely): Is there any sign of life whatsoever in the Gillard government?

Most commented

57 comments

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    • MarK says:

      03:12pm | 02/12/10

      You see this is the problem with the media including The Punch.

      All these scare stories about giant space microbes (did that make sense? - meh). This is definitely NOT the greatest moral challenge of our time. The greatest moral challenge of our time was reading that Lara Bingle-on-the harbour story with the wife in the room and claim you are not looking at the picture of Lara in that fetching black see through number as she lounged contentedly on the deck of the white yacht, the wind ruffling her hair, a cheeky smile on her face and her eyes mischievous and flirting with delight.

      That was a moral challenge.

      I for one as an avid gamer welcome the discovery of the giant space microbe thingys.

      When they turn earth into a an apocalyptic hell full of flesh eating zombies and ravenous packs of bunny rabbits my gaming skill and high PvP count will ensure I can kick the zombies in the groin and make the crazed bunnies into soup.

      Then tell me my time at WoW has been frivolous you bunch of noobs.

      Reply

    • fairsfair says:

      03:34pm | 02/12/10

      MarK, completely off topic but with you being a gamer can I ask you a question (and please don’t judge me for this)?...

      Why is gamer “owned” spelled “pwned”? I have always wondered…

      I just assumed that because coiner of the phrase spent so much time playing games indoors their fingers grew so fat that they hit the P when the were aiming for O. But it could be something else…

    • Keith hammersmith says:

      03:49pm | 02/12/10

      Fairsfair, you really arent that far off the mark,  pwned was coined in world of warcraft and was just a typo, that people found amusing and stuck.  I imagine in the original creator (did i just say original creator in an article about life on another planet - oops)  in the excitement of pwning some noobs in pvp hit the p instead of the o.  i think all of his guild mates probably said ZOMG in reply

    • Randy McCain says:

      03:57pm | 02/12/10

      MarK, I heard that NASA is also about to announce they have found life in Uranus.

      Apparently they vote Liberal as well.

    • fairsfair says:

      04:00pm | 02/12/10

      ha ha ha - thanks Keith. I am also glad you responded, because you’ve cleared up another thing for me - I thought MarK meant WoW Sight and Sound…

    • MarK says:

      04:10pm | 02/12/10

      What Keith said fairsfair is 100% right.

      The ZOMG comes from the z and shift key being close together hence the typo when “yelling” OMG.

      The South Park WoW episode made pwned really mainstream

      Randy made a funny too did you see it? I must remember to vote for the Libs on the lower house one day to make all the jokes have meaning. Remind me next year about October please.

    • Zepy says:

      06:00pm | 02/12/10

      pwn pwnage pwnd I first saw in my counter strike days well before WOW. An interesting note is that ‘pew’ ‘pew’ as in shoot shoot may have links to pwn. less talking and more pew pew…..pew pew p e pn w PWN!!!

    • MarK says:

      08:15am | 03/12/10

      Yeh Zepy - I admit I missed Keith said pwn came from WoW. It was just a gamer term forever for the exact reason he gave.

      Definitely became mainstream from that awesome South Park episode though….damn I love that episode.

      Pew pew - well my understanding it comes form the lazer sound in all those sci fi greats so whenever you attack something you pew pew with your lazers of awesomeness. If your lazers happen to be Shadowmourne so be it - you still be doing the pew pew raspberry

    • TheRealDave says:

      09:20am | 03/12/10

      pwn was years before South Park or WoW had ever heard of it. pwn came from idiots typing quickly in chat to pay out on someone they just killed and mistakenly typed ‘pwned’ instead of ‘owned’ as the P is beside the O.

      No other derivatives or claims to fame, no one person, no one show, no one game.

    • Jim says:

      09:55am | 03/12/10

      Ahh I realise why I like you so much now MarK - you’re a fellow WoW’er! The pew pew’s, QQ’s, ZOMG’s and pwned’s don’t bother me…but when they start with the ‘can I haz pls’ I feel like punching someone.

    • fairsfair says:

      11:28am | 03/12/10

      Jim, say it isn’t so! I have always thought of you as a straight talking, once Townsville dwelling, non union, king gee wearing, XXXX drinking perfect man. And now you go and say this….... zomg. devo.

    • The Badger says:

      12:28pm | 03/12/10

      fairsfair
      that’s funny
      I always thought of him as a union bashing country bumpkin who prefers the union of men - ala brokeback mountain

    • Jim says:

      01:27pm | 03/12/10

      Now now, was there any need for that, Weasel?? That goes lower than your usual kindergarten standard spray at people.

    • Jim says:

      01:42pm | 03/12/10

      @fairsfair…I know! I lived in the ‘Ville for 6 years, doing FIFO. The camp I lived in 22 days a month had no TV other than a fuzzy signal from EM-TV (out of PNG), a bar that sold XXXX Gold and not much else, and a gym. It did however have a pretty good CDMA internet tower nearby, so to pass the time I started playing. It was a great way to keep in touch with my young fella too. But before I knew it the game had devoured my soul…

    • fairsfair says:

      03:42pm | 03/12/10

      Oh no Jim, it has tainted you ever so slightly. I will try and push past it though wink

      My dad worked worked at Goonyella and Ernest Henry for my entire childhood and I always wondered why he insisted on ringing home every night (on his Eriksson Bag Phone) and would not GTFO the line… now I know he was simply avoiding the spiral that is WoW…

    • NicoleG says:

      03:44pm | 03/12/10

      That was very nasty Badger. Now for being nasty like that, I’m going to show this

      http://www.badgerbadgerbadger.com/

      I don’t know if you saw this link that fairsfair posted yesterday Jim, but it’s just hilarious. So when you’re watching it just picture him doing the little dance. Happy Friday!!!!

    • The Badger says:

      05:02pm | 03/12/10

      Nicole
      If you think that was nasty, you should see the ones that don’t make it through the internet filter.

      .

    • Simon White says:

      03:13pm | 02/12/10

      Are you kidding? Everyone knows it’s all just subterfuge, NASA is completely staffed by alien-human hybrids. Been that way since Area-51. Don’t let them fool you.

      Reply

    • Aitch B says:

      03:20pm | 02/12/10

      Hahaha!!

      “... some kind of shapeless Lara Bingle monster”.

      Love it!!

      No doubt nosthow and/or acotrel will put some sort of ant-Abbott bulls**t spin on this one too….......

      Reply

    • Andrew Flemming says:

      03:20pm | 02/12/10

      LOL you’ve got a lot less chance of finding life in the Gillard Gov than in the far-flung reaches of space…..

      Reply

    • fairsfair says:

      03:21pm | 02/12/10

      Life in the Gillard Government… well using your suggestion of “a diet of maccas and coke” as a measure and judging on button strain alone -  I’m going to say no. Thats without even touching on the threesomes within bizarre orange pods and super bad mustaches….

      Reply

    • SM says:

      03:26pm | 02/12/10

      Hahaha… “Also, no human uses a joystick left handed”

      You’ve gotta start surfing off the Punch every once in a while Sharwood. There’s plenty of websites that benefit from left-handed joystick operation.

      Reply

    • Super D says:

      05:35pm | 02/12/10

      I’d wager nosthow types solely with his left hand.

    • TheRealDave says:

      09:35am | 03/12/10

      Years of trolling the internet has taught me to be ambidickstrous…I mean ambidextrous….

    • The Other Phil says:

      03:26pm | 02/12/10

      Firstly, finding any sort of life at all is something that we never would have thought possible 50-100 years ago, but we must remind ourselves that it isn’t necessarily going to be something that we would consider intelligent life. Finding any sort of life in existence outside of our ozone layer is a really big deal. If we can find it within our solar system, it leads to more of a chance of other life forms existing elsewhere within the universe. That’s a pretty big thing.

      I do have a feeling that this NASA press conference will also (if not completely) relate to finding gammaproteobacteria that has Arsenic-based DNA rather than our Phosphorous based DNA. This basically means that there is life, but not as we know it that exists in an ecosystem different to ours (we die if exposed to quantities of Arsenic). Again, another very big discovery. This leads us down one of two paths - either it is a species of microbes that has evolved to survive and use arsenic in it’s biological processes, or it has always been in existence, and thus represents a new branch of life on Earth.

      Otherwise… what was the point of the article? It seemed to be random pictures from the NASA archives and apparently witty comments.

      Reply

    • Keith Hammersmith says:

      03:52pm | 02/12/10

      i think the real point of finding any kind of life on another planet or moon in our solar system is that it changes one fundamental fact. Before it is found we can say that life is extremely rare, and may only exist here,  but after
      we can say that if life occurs twice (and maybe more) just in our solar system then we can safely say that life in the universe is quite common (relatively)

    • adammacleod says:

      03:52pm | 02/12/10

      Discovery of alien life would be incredible.  I hope it’s true.

      Reply

    • TheBigMicka says:

      04:03pm | 02/12/10

      Microbes!  WTF!  That’s nothing a can of Glen 20 wouldn’t take care of.  Why don’t they just show up in the Flying Saucer that crashed at Roswell?

      Reply

    • Macca says:

      04:16pm | 02/12/10

      haha, classic Sharwood

      Reply

    • nosthow says:

      04:17pm | 02/12/10

      This NASA organisation is the biggest scam going Anthony. In a nutshell we have progressed absolutely nowhere in the 50 or 60 years of its being. Gone to the moon - tick - 41 years ago !  How far is Mars - too bloody far for man to bother to venture to and if he did its either freezing or red hot ! No this NASA mob are a big bunch of scammers sucking on the public purse and in the end providing almost zilch as their result. And lets not forget all the “jobs for life” - what a scam. Wonder are there any vacancies for an old seahorse like me - Nosthow - first man on Mars ! No honeys up on Mars anyway.

      Reply

    • NicoleG says:

      04:36pm | 02/12/10

      How far is Mars, too bloody far you say? Well, you manage go get there and back everyday. So, what’s the weather like today?

    • fairsfair says:

      09:21pm | 02/12/10

      “no honeys up on mars anyway”.... I just spewed a little bit in my mouth…

    • Northern Steve says:

      07:00am | 03/12/10

      Voyager? Mars Rovers? Hubble psace telescope?  Shuttle program? ISS?

      Yep, a big scam.  They just sit on their arse and post drivel on blogs all day.

      Oh, hang on, that’s not NASA…

    • TheRealDave says:

      09:22am | 03/12/10

      Just tell them there is Oil on Mars.

      ...couldn’t help myself :p

    • P. Darvio says:

      03:03pm | 03/12/10

      ...and the Australian Space Program is between the ears of bloggers such as yourself.

    • jane wallace says:

      04:29pm | 02/12/10

      In astrology,saturn is the planet of restriction on human character development, world expansion, and on human destiny.

      Reply

    • Tripper Smurf says:

      11:01am | 03/12/10

      In the real world, people who believe in the farce of astrology place restriction on freewill, thought expansion and ultimatley control over your on destiny.

    • jane wallace says:

      04:31pm | 02/12/10

      the next world cup finals will be on a moon of saturn

      Reply

    • jane wallace says:

      04:33pm | 02/12/10

      If Liberals ever get control of australia again, Australian Life will feel like life of a moon on saturn.

      Reply

    • nosthow says:

      04:48pm | 02/12/10

      @Jane - alll safe there Jane - with the current “do nothing - go nowhere ” management team the Libs currently have they would be hard pressed to organise a Sunday picnic let alone govern Australia - geez ! I am predicting some big name Lib retirements next year as the rot sets in Jane - I’ll keep you posted.

    • nosthow says:

      04:55pm | 02/12/10

      For the youngsters viewing today heres a montage of Apollo 11, mans 1st trip to the moon in July 1969. NASA has recently called for expressions of interest to be one of the 1st on Mars and I can report I have tended my name but as yet am still awaiting a reply - come on fellas read ya bloody emails ! To the Moon Alice !
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCp2jTtay0w

      Reply

    • Wallaby says:

      05:56pm | 02/12/10

      I, for one hope you are accepted.

    • Aitch B says:

      06:46am | 03/12/10

      @nosthow

      So…. you have ‘tended’ your name for a trip to Mars, eh?

      What a tender thought!!

      BTW…. why do you put spaces before exclamation marks?

    • jane wallace says:

      05:06pm | 02/12/10

      Big Liberal Party retirements next year ???Wow!  Who?
      Piers Akerman? Allan jones? Ted Bailleau? Andrew Bolt? Miranda Devine? Janet Albechtsen? peter fitzsimmons? ray hadley? graham richardson? michael costa? joe de bruyn? dave pembethy?tony abbott? barrie o’farrell? brian loughnane? julia bishop?george pell?dick filmer?vic emerton? c dicker? chrris ullmann? paul kelly?stan zemanek?john pearce? sophie mirrabella? julia gillard? hugh mackay? bono?
      please can you please give me a few hints please.I cannot guess right.Sorry.
      what makes a bif Liberal Party retirement?

      Reply

    • BobM says:

      06:53pm | 02/12/10

      Stan Zemanek is dead. You’re just brain dead. Certainly a poor speciman of life on earth.

    • MarK says:

      08:42pm | 02/12/10

      Why I am replying to this is beyond me but apart from some glaring errors in the list there is one that stands out.

      Zemanek is dead so it will not be him

    • Col says:

      05:24pm | 02/12/10

      Don’t get too excited. NASA pulls this stunt from time to time. It’s all about NASA pretending to do something important so the American taxpayer doesn’t feel too bad about wasting millions of dollars on them.

      Reply

    • Meispod says:

      05:33pm | 02/12/10

      Mmmmm   arsenic based bacteria flavored potato chips, can’t wait.

      Reply

    • stephen says:

      06:10pm | 02/12/10

      If you log on to National Geographic you can see glorious pictures of Saturn and its moons.
      These have been of interest to NASA because of their chemical composition, and apparently because of unusual surface features.
      If there is life on Saturn, the great inference is this : life must be everywhere.

      Reply

    • iansand says:

      06:18pm | 02/12/10

      Were the bugs on the Ark?  How did they get to the far boonies of the Solar System?

      Reply

    • nosthow says:

      06:56pm | 02/12/10

      Tony Abbott and myself are going to open the first “Budgie Smuggler” franchise on Mars. Tony will of course be selling his own range of budgies but of course I must sell something more relevant to the well endowed man, such as myself, so will be presenting my new range of “Parrott” and “Eagle” Smugglers ! Oh yeah ! Theres a funny ad on TV where a French guy says” I shot 60 parrotts on a beach” - I dont understand that one ?

      Reply

    • Wayne Fehlhaber says:

      08:37pm | 02/12/10

      Nosthow :  Rumour has it that you could a thimble as a condom.
      If there is any truth in that , please don’t wear budgie smugglers .
      Could turn blokes off budgies forever.

    • No more please says:

      09:18am | 03/12/10

      Please refrain from tired and cliched “Budgie Smuggler” references.  I fully support ridiculing the opposition leader but have some creativity or stick to crayoning.

    • nosthow says:

      01:21pm | 03/12/10

      @No More Please -is that you little Markey hiding behind a nom de Plume hhhahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

    • No more please says:

      10:40pm | 03/12/10

      @nosthow - I certainly am not, I am just an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire of the uninspired

    • Mr Mustela says:

      09:41am | 03/12/10

      Is there life on Nasa?

      On a question of this importance, I would have to consult with Bolt before I make up my mind.

      Reply

    • Ben G says:

      01:34pm | 03/12/10

      I will never get back the minutes I spent trying to figure what this article was about, only to find out it was about absolutely nothing. Thanks Seinfeld.

      Reply
 
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