Mystery Science Theater 3000
"STS-1 DISASTER/COVERUP"
[Season 4 opening.]
[...1...2...3...4...5...6...]
[The SOL bridge doors close on a darkened bridge, but a small imitation
campfire made of red and orange cellophane crumpled over a light bulb
glows cheerily on the desk. Joel, wearing a fishing vest over his
maroon jumpsuit, Gypsy, wearing a wide-brimmed floppy hat, and Tom,
wearing a Stetson Scout hat and neckerchief, are gathered around it.]
JOEL: Oh, hi! Welcome to the Satellite of Love. I'm Joel Robinson,
and my bots and I are taking a camping trip. After a big day of
hiking, we're gathering around the campfire to sing songs...
GYPSY: And tell ghost stories!
TOM: How right you are. And I've got a story that'll chill and
terrify you! Uh, Joel, if you'd just...
JOEL: Sure thing.
[He picks up a flashlight, holds it beneath Tom's head, and switches it
on. Tom's head spookily lights up.]
TOM: It all started with a camping trip *just like this one...*
GYPSY: Ooh!
TOM: They were gathered in the woods, far away from anyone... and
then, as they huddled around the campfire, they heard something--
[Something cracks suddenly. Joel and Gypsy both start, but Tom shrieks
and ducks under the desk. Crow enters, carrying a small knapsack on
his back.]
CROW: [innocently] Boy, you shouldn't leave all those sticks lying
around...
[Tom pops up, facing Crow.]
TOM: Crow! You probably scared me out of a year's growth!
CROW: Gee, sorry, Tom. I suppose you'll make up for it once you're
stuffed with marshmallows, though...
TOM: Marshmallows?
CROW: And weenies!
TOM: Cool! I wanna roast two weenies and all the marshmallows I can
eat!
CROW: You'll have to snatch 'em away from me first!
GYPSY: Marshmallows!
MAGIC VOICE: Fifteen seconds to commercial sign...
JOEL: Okay, okay, we'll all have some.
MAGIC VOICE: Five, four, three, two, one, commercial sign now. Save
some for me!
[The commercial light flashes.]
JOEL: And we'll be right back.
[He reaches over and hits the commercial light.]
[commercials]
[SOL bridge. Everyone is out of their camping garb, although a towel is
slung around Tom's shoulders.]
TOM: Ah, nothing like a good shower after camping to get rid of the
smoke smell!
CROW: You don't appreciate what you've got until you've spent some time
roughing it away from it.
[The mads' light flashes.]
CROW: Of course, you don't really appreciate those guys *any* time...
JOEL: Come on, let's not get the Evil Underlords *too* ticked off.
[He hits the mads' light.]
[Deep 13. Dr. Forrester is in the foreground. TV's Frank is visible to
one side of him, leafing through what looks like a comic book, and a
square safe-like object stands open on his other side.]
DR. F: Greetings, Joel Haley and the Comets. Had we but known of your
little expedition, we'd have shipped appropriate wildlife--in the
form of mosquitoes--up to you. That's all behind us now,
though--you've got today's Invention Exchange ready, I presume?
[SOL. A deflated beach ball connected by a short hose to a small green-
painted gas bottle sits on the desk.]
JOEL: Well, nostalgia for the nineteen-seventies is big these days... or
is it? It seems every time you turn around, people have changed
their minds on whether disco's worth remembering. Well, we think
you can hedge your bets... with the Inflatable Disco Ball!
[He twists a valve on the bottle, and the beach ball, appropriately
covered with sparkly tinfoil, inflates.]
TOM: And when you or anyone else is tired of it...
[Joel closes the valve and opens another one, and the beach ball
deflates.]
[Deep 13. Dr. Forrester now stands in the background near Frank, who's
still reading. The safe-like object is now fully visible, its top
decorated with a series of gadgets.]
DR. F: I see you're looking back, way back... but we're looking forward!
It's still possible to get in on the ground floor of the
lucrative collectibles market... but to make sure that your...
[He snatches the comic book from Frank's hands, and briefly grimaces at
the Donald Duck comic he's now holding.]
DR. F: Well, it doesn't matter *exactly* what you put in it, only that
the Collectible Safe will keep it better-than-near-mint forever!
[He tosses the comic into the safe and swings the brightly painted door
shut with a loud clang. A series of thumps and hisses follows as the
safe shakes slightly and steam rises from it.]
DR. F: Even as I speak, the door is being welded solidly shut and inert
nitrogen is replacing the air inside.
FRANK: But I wasn't done reading it!
DR. F: Oh, grow up! With the money you'll make from it in ten years,
you'll be able to buy all the stuff you want... which you'll seal
away in *other* Collectible Safes, of course... each collectible
itself!
[Frank gets up and walks over to the safe, looking at it uncertainly as
it continues to shake. Dr. Forrester returns to the foreground.]
DR. F: In any event, your experiment this week is a Usenet post from
that lovable net.nut, Robert McElwaine... or at least, it's got
his email address on it. Everything you know is wrong...
although it's an open question whether this thing is any more in
the right. Send them the post, Frank.
[SOL. Joel is inspecting the Inflatable Disco Ball.]
CROW: If I had one of those safes, I'd imperishably preserve sandwiches
for future generations to discover.
TOM: If I had one of them, I'd protect my graphic novels... but that's
a given, isn't it?
JOEL: Let me just think about what I've got--
[Lights, sirens, mayhem.]
JOEL: Oh no, *we've got McElwaine sign!*
[...6...5...4...3...2...1...]
[Joel enters, Crow following, and puts Tom in his seat.]
> From: mcelwre@cnsvax.uwec.edu
> Newsgroups: sci.space
JOEL: Just one letter away from the science of spice newsgroup...
CROW: sci.space. sci.space run. Run, space, run.
> Subject: STS-1 DISASTER/COVERUP
> Message-ID: <1992Dec21.110606.2970@cnsvax.uwec.edu>
> Date: 21 Dec 92 11:06:06 -0600
> Organization: University of Wisconsin Eau Claire
TOM: With McElwaine, the "Eew!" factor's always pretty "clear".
> Lines: 856
>
> STS-1 DISASTER/COVERUP
>
JOEL: Which is exactly equal to mishap divided by little white lie.
> Dr. Beter AUDIO LETTER #64 of 80
>
> Digitized by Jon Volkoff,
TOM: Maybe to a high-quality AIFF file!
CROW: Whoa there, Tom, let's not go nuts!
> email address eidetics@cerf.net
>
> "AUDIO LETTER(R)" is a registered trademark of Audio Books,
> Inc., a Texas corporation,
CROW: ...Should it bother us that these things have a registered
trademark?
JOEL: Maybe. Maybe it should.
> which originally produced this tape
> recording. Reproduced under open license granted by Audio
> Books, Inc.
>
TOM: Also known as the "we'll never actually *sell* another copy"
license...
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>
CROW: Tear along the dotted line. Discard unused portion.
> This is the Dr. Beter AUDIO LETTER(R), 1629 K Street N.W.,
> Washington, DC 20006
>
TOM: Keep those cards and letters coming in, folks!
> Hello, my friends, this is Dr. Beter.
JOEL: Every day in every way, he is getting Beter and Beter.
> Today is April 27,
> 1981,
CROW: Uh, McElwaine, shouldn't you have told us about this a bit sooner?
> and this is my AUDIO LETTER No. 64.
>
ALL: [singing] Will you still heed me,
Will you still read me,
When I'm sixty-four?
> "T minus 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4...
CROW: Man, even McElwaine posts start with stock footage these days!
> We've gone for main engine
> start. We have main engine start."
TOM: Well, that was speedy!
JOEL: And it's service with a smile.
> (Engine noise takes over for
> some two seconds)
CROW: The shortest hostile takeover in history.
> "...liftoff of America's first Space Shuttle,
> and the Shuttle has cleared the tower." (Then again the roaring
> noise on the AUDIO LETTER tape.)
>
TOM: Hey, this is just a transcript!
JOEL: Well, it's computer characters. They're *sort* of digital and
stuff.
CROW: And you have to admit, they really captured the poor sound
reproduction.
> And that's how it all began, my friends, just two weeks
> ago--Sunday, April 12, 1981.
TOM: Present at the creation, I see...
> After years of delay, America's
> first attempt to launch a space shuttle into orbit had finally
> begun.
>
JOEL: So one gold star for effort.
> In days gone by, the voice of "Mission Control" has always
> been a familiar hallmark of American manned flights into space.
CROW: But did those days begin two weeks ago, too?
JOEL: Ah, those fabled days of yore...
> In the early days, beginning with "PROJECT MERCURY", the voice
> was that of Col. John (Shorty) Powers. Later, during the
> "APOLLO" program there were other voices;
TOM: A sign of the growing complexity of the American space program was
its shift from solo vocals to choral music.
> but regardless of who
> it was, that familiar voice of "Mission Control" would always
> stay with us throughout each space flight--that is, until this
> time.
JOEL: The voice *finally* needed a bathroom break.
CROW: Ah, so *that's* how it all began!
> This time the voice of Mission Control, up until the
> moment of launch, was that of NASA spokesman Hugh Harris.
TOM: I'm Hugh!
> The
> last words Harris spoke as the voice of Mission Control were the
> words you just heard: "The Shuttle has cleared the tower."
>
TOM: Should we tell Beter and McElwaine about the difference between
Launch Control in Florida and Mission Control in Texas?
CROW: Nah. Why spoil their rich fantasy lives?
> Television cameras followed the Shuttle as it climbed higher
> and higher on a column of steam and smoke.
JOEL: Not only is it the first reusable spacecraft, it's also the first
coal-powered rocket.
> For another 30
> seconds or so, we were allowed to hear the slowly fading roar of
> the Shuttle's rocket engines.
TOM: Oh, *may we?*
> Then the sounds from Mission
> Control abruptly changed.
CROW: Wait, what about the people watching from the beach?
JOEL: Giant speakers.
CROW: Sure, I can see that--huh?
> Exactly 45 seconds after lift-off,
> "live" audio from Mission Control was terminated.
TOM: Terminate--with mild prejudice!
> In its place
> NASA began feeding the radio and television networks an elaborate
> tape recording, which had been prepared far ahead of time by
> NASA.
JOEL: I thought maybe they'd just contract out for that sort of thing.
> The change-over from "live" audio to the NASA tape
> recording sounded like this: (First, loud roaring for 10 seconds,
> abruptly fading, then into a steadily increasing-in-loudness
> humming-roaring for some 10 seconds.)
CROW: *Hear* the terrifying proof of a shoddy tape recorder!
> "4-34...?" "Roger."
JOEL: ...Good buddy!
> (More of the roaring sound.)
>
> Just 45 seconds after lift-off, the falsified NASA coverage of
> the flight of the "Columbia" began.
TOM: Just in case the dramatic stock footage made you forget that.
> We were still able to see
> the Columbia by way of long-distance television cameras for
> another minute and a half, but the sounds we were hearing were no
> longer "live."
CROW: They were resting! Pining for the fjords!
> They were the sounds of the special NASA tape
> recording. For the first minute or so of the tape recording, we
> heard nothing but the sound effects simulating conversation
> between the Shuttle and NASA-Houston.
JOEL: With the capcom Gerald McBoingBoing.
> Then, for the first time,
> we heard the anonymous new voice of Mission Control. It was no
> longer the familiar live voice of Hugh Harris,
TOM: For who hasn't let the mellow sound of Hugh Harris become part of
their daily life?
> but the recorded
> voice of someone else. For added realism, the new voice was
> interrupted in turn by the recorded voice of the alleged capsule
> communicator Daniel Brandenstein.
JOEL: Radio Free Brandenstein!
TOM: We salute you, "someone else!" You may not have spoken for long,
but it was apparently long enough!
> It sounded like this: (first a
> high-pitched screech
TOM: [wincing] Look, Dan, you don't have to do *that* much to get our
attention!
> followed by) "One minute 45 seconds, coming
> up on go-go-go."
CROW: The steel cages and kicky boots are ready! Whoo!
> "Columbia, you're negative seats." "That
> call-up says that, Columbia, the altitude is too high for
> ejection seat use."
>
JOEL: Well, that's good. I was worried it was a new idea for the Mads'
inventions.
> By that point the shuttle Columbia was more than 20 miles
> high, and climbing fast.
CROW: The Byrds had packed up twelve miles ago.
> Everything was going according to plan
> so far, so the things we were hearing on the tape recording
> corresponded to what we were seeing.
TOM: Yes, it's the terrifying conspiracy that tells us *exactly what's
really happening!*
> We could still see the
> Shuttle on our TV sets, but it had dwindled to nothing more than
> three bright spots dancing in the distant sky.
>
JOEL: Those three-person dances are always so awkward.
CROW: [wimpy] May I cut in? May I cut in? No really, may I cut in?
> The last thing that you and I were able to see and verify for
> ourselves about the Shuttle was the separation of those two giant
> solid-rocket boosters.
TOM: The messy court challenge made that just about unavoidable.
> A little over two minutes after liftoff,
> we were able to watch the boosters, two burning bright spots,
> break off to each side.
CROW: "Boosters?" Oh, come on! Those could be anything!
TOM: Question authority, Beter!
> That left only the single tiny flame of
> the Shuttle itself, gradually fading into invisibility.
TOM: This is where the giant invisoray comes into play, right?
> Several
> seconds later the NASA tape recording caught up with what we had
> already seen, and said the boosters had separated.
JOEL: It's a real shame when a furtive conspiracy doesn't care enough to
cue its tape recording properly.
> Moments later
> the tiny bright dot of the Shuttle faded from our screens.
CROW: They thought they'd distract us from noticing that, but we were
too sharp for them!
> It
> was too far away for the television cameras to follow any longer.
> We had had our last look at the real space shuttle Columbia!
>
TOM: And if I'd known, I'd have waved.
> In AUDIO LETTER No. 62 two months ago, I gave an advance alert
> about the secret military mission of the space shuttle Columbia.
CROW: Which makes this month more of a victory lap than anything, but
hey, who doesn't love to gloat?
> At that time I made public what the mission was really all about.
> I was also able to reveal what to expect in the falsified NASA
> coverage of the mission.
>
JOEL: The key to the code turned out to be replacing all "conduct tests"
in the press kit with "commit evil, evil deeds."
TOM: Simple yet brilliant!
> The falsified coverage was designed to accomplish two
> purposes. First, to completely hide the military nature of the
> mission; and second, to make sure the mission looked like a total
> success, no matter what might happen in secret.
CROW: Two cover-ups for the price of one!
JOEL: But if they'd been *really* subtle, they would've covered up the
budget too.
> As I detailed in
> AUDIO LETTER No. 62, the Bolsheviks here in the federal
> government
JOEL: Oh yeah, the first months of the Reagan administration were real
heavy on Bolsheviks.
TOM: We should have expected it when Ronnie hung those red flags all
over the White House.
> are depending heavily on the Space Shuttle Program to
> get ready for a nuclear war against Russia.
>
CROW: 'Cause there's nothing Bolsheviks like better than nuclear war
against Russia!
> The falsified NASA coverage of the mission of the space
> shuttle Columbia was carried out exactly according to plan. I
> revealed this plan two months ago.
TOM: Just as you've already told us...
CROW: He just likes rubbing it in.
> There were the standard brief
> cockpit scenes made by techniques which I will describe later.
> Just to make it look good, it was spiced up by telling us that a
> few non-critical tiles had fallen off.
JOEL: Non-critical tiles, the new zesty oregano!
> Otherwise we were told
> over and over how perfectly the Columbia was performing.
>
CROW: He's not even going to dignify that with a putdown, I see.
> Four days ago on April 23, a news conference about the flight
> was held in Houston, Texas, by the alleged two astronauts, John
> Young and Robert Crippen. The entity called John Young
TOM: What, is Beter *still* mad John broke that experiment on the Moon?
> summed up
> the flight in words that were more meaningful than most people
> suspected.
JOEL: 'Cause even alleged entities get a kick out of that kind of thing.
> Referring to the falsified flight which we followed
> on television, he called it, quote: "...even better than normal."
> And so it was, my friends.
TOM: They speak, and it is so!
> The Bolsheviks who now control NASA
> bent over backwards to paint the image of an abnormally perfect
> shuttle flight.
CROW: They *could* have just turned around to paint, but nobody ever
accused Bolsheviks of being smart...
> Meanwhile the actual Shuttle mission, which was
> carried out in secret, did not go according to plan.
JOEL: The plan revealed two months ago?
CROW: Are you *still* going on about that?
> After the
> Shuttle disappeared from our television screens, the flight
> continued for barely four more minutes before disaster struck.
TOM: They ran out of commercials?
> The Columbia never even reached earth orbit!
>
> My friends, I believe you have both the right and the need to
> know what happened to the space shuttle Columbia two weeks ago.
JOEL: Whatever makes you happy.
TOM: Weren't we just told?
> I believe you deserve to know, in detail,
CROW: So we deserve to be *punished.*
JOEL: Well, I don't know...
CROW: That's what I'm getting here, that's all.
> how and why the truth
> was hidden from you. The stakes involve nothing less than the
> very survival of our land and our way of life.
>
JOEL: Just like last month, and the month before...
TOM: But no pressure, really.
> My three special topics for this AUDIO LETTER are:
>
> Topic #1--THE ADVANCE PREPARATIONS FOR THE SPACE SHUTTLE MISSION
CROW: Roll out the barrel!
> Topic #2--THE ABORTED FLIGHT OF THE SPACE SHUTTLE "COLUMBIA"
TOM: What do you mean, it sprang a leak?
> Topic #3--THE NASA COVERUP OF THE "COLUMBIA" DISASTER.
>
JOEL: I present our newest spinoff--dehydrated cider!
> Topic #1--There is an old saying that "Seeing is believing."
CROW: There's also a newer saying that "things go better with Coke."
> For
> that reason, television has become the No. 1 tool of deception in
> America today.
TOM: Viciously elbowing paintings out of the way!
> Through television we are made to see things we
> do not understand so that we will believe things that are not
> true.
JOEL: Can't follow it? Might as well believe it...
> If television were used honestly and constructively,
> television could be a great force for good. Instead, it's used
> continually to hoax, deceive, and mislead us.
CROW: See, the important thing about this is it tells us things we've
never heard before.
> Video-taping makes
> events which took place weeks or months ago look as if they were
> taking place "live" right before our eyes.
TOM: Humble nails hold startlingly realistic sets together!
> Computer editing
> enables scenes to be spliced together to create completely
> artificial images that look real.
CROW: The motor vehicle industry speeds supplies to secret studio
fortresses!
> Special effects of all kinds
> enable these television hoaxes to be very convincing indeed.
>
JOEL: I think Doctor Beter was a bit too interested in "Battlestar
Galactica."
> Two years ago I described one major television hoax in detail
> in AUDIO LETTER No. 44. That hoax involved no less than the NBC
> television news program "Meet the Press."
TOM: "Meet the Press!" They'll stop at nothing!
CROW: Now I'm really shaken!
> Now we have been
> treated to another great television hoax, and this one was the
> granddaddy of them all.
CROW: Granddaddies always treat us nice!
TOM: It's the crotchety old uncle hoaxes we have to watch for.
> In terms of sheer deception, this was
> the "Meet the Press" hoax, "Guyana", and SKYLAB all rolled into
> one.
JOEL: Mostly because we've never really heard of any of those hoaxes
before now.
TOM: Although I'm suddenly worried Kool-Aid's going to be worked into
this somehow...
CROW: And Tang's not going to be involved? That's important!
> This was the hoax coverage of the first flight of the space
> shuttle Columbia.
>
TOM: Oh, I'm sure they'll top it by next letter...
JOEL: Month.
TOM: Right, month!
> To begin with, we were led to believe that until two weeks ago
> no space shuttle had ever left the earth's atmosphere and gone
> into space.
TOM: We really *are* being fed a bill of goods, aren't we?
> We were also led to believe that the very first
> space flight by a shuttle had to be an orbital flight, instead of
> something less extreme.
JOEL: Yeah, it could've been a rocket-powered taxi run dragging fuel
lines across the Edwards dry lake.
TOM: *Much* less extreme!
> To make matters still worse, NASA swore
> up and down that this very first flight, pushing the Shuttle to
> its limits, just had to have men aboard.
CROW: Revealing its Bolshevik nature in the process by not using a stack
of Bibles.
> At one point even John
> Young himself was quoted to this effect very widely in the
> controlled major media.
TOM: John Young *himself!* Wow!
JOEL: Bob Crippen had to console himself with the controlled *minor*
media.
> For example, two months ago on February
> 15, the New York Times carried a big article about the Shuttle.
JOEL: They're gonna carry that weight a long time.
> Quoting from the article: "Mr. Young said, to have conducted an
> unmanned orbital flight of the Shuttle first would have added
> perhaps $500,000,000 to project costs,
CROW: Half a billion here, half a billion there, and pretty soon you're
talking real money!
> and meant another year's
> delay." Statements like that were cooked up purely to explain
> away the many things that did not add up about the announced
> plans for the Columbia's flight.
TOM: Yes, they can add *anything* to their projects with no extra time
*or* expense, but they can't make a cover story to save their
lives!
> Many people believe these
> explanations, but they were just a litany of lies.
>
CROW: Zing!
JOEL: A supplication of soft soap, a rogation of ribticklers!
> For example, time after time during the television coverage of
> the alleged flight this month, John Young's earlier statement was
> totally contradicted.
JOEL: And just like Beter said, you can believe everything you see on
TV!
TOM: ...Or something like that.
> Authoritative spokesmen pointed out over
> and over that the astronauts control the Shuttle by telling
> computers aboard the Shuttle what they want.
CROW: No names? No dates? No locations?
TOM: They're *authoritative!* What more do you want?
> The computers then
> do all the actual activation and control of the Shuttle--and, in
> an emergency, the Shuttle can fly itself into orbit, re-enter,
> and even land itself without help from the pilots.
JOEL: But in an upgrade or two, it won't hurt their feelings that way.
CROW: Is the crew not getting on at all an emergency, or just an
inconvenience?
> So much for
> all those lies NASA told us about an unmanned first flight being
> impossible.
>
TOM: Don't you just hate it when an intricate conspiracy can't be
bothered to follow through?
> The real reason astronauts were aboard the first orbital
> flight was the one I revealed in AUDIO LETTER No. 62. It was a
> military mission, and the astronauts had to be aboard to carry it
> out.
CROW: Because computers are honest and good!
TOM: They'd never do *anything* shady!
JOEL: [sigh]
> NASA told us that the flight this month was only a test
> flight with the cargo bay practically empty. But the cargo bay
> of the Columbia was not empty.
JOEL: It carried the hopes and dreams of a nation.
TOM: How incredibly *diabolical!*
> It carried a laser-armed Spy
> Satellite equipped with special shields to protect it against
> Russian space weapons.
CROW: And a Bergenholm inertialess drive, and a positronic brain, and an
ansible set, and a cyberspace deck...
> "But wait a minute", you say.
TOM: "Why am I *listening* to this?"
> "They
> showed us live pictures from space and you could see that the bay
> was empty." No, my friends, not "live" pictures but video tapes.
JOEL: You're making a powerful enemy in Memorex there...
CROW: What? The laser-armed satellite didn't have a cloaking device
too?
> The pictures with the doors closed were taken inside a training
> mock-up of the shuttle that is carried inside a specially
> modified Boeing 747.
TOM: Secret studio fortresses? They're *so* 1968.
> The pictures with the doors open were taken
> on the ground inside a darkened hangar.
CROW: I was sure he'd say something about blue screens.
JOEL: The less light shed on this, the better.
> Then these scenes were
> combined by video tape editing techniques with video tapes of the
> earth taken from orbit years ago.
TOM: Ah--so *that* explains the big crowd visible from orbit in
upstate New York!
> The final product was what you
> saw on television. It was not what it appeared to be, but
> "seeing is believing."
>
JOEL: Which probably explains something or other about this *audio*
tape.
> My friends, the next time you see a replay of those scenes
> with the Shuttle doors open, supposedly in space, there is a
> telltale clue to look for. Look at the shadows visible inside
> the open cargo bay.
TOM: Shadows tell you *so* much more than actual images!
> Shadows in space tend to be sharp and harsh
> because there is no air to soften and diffuse them.
JOEL: Also, the vaseline just boils right off the camera lenses.
> The shadows
> we saw in the video tapes on television were softer because they
> were not made in space. Also, look at the angle of the shadows.
TOM: Take out your protractors...
> The earth is shown floating straight overhead, and it is all in
> daylight.
CROW: So basically, it's floating in a most peculiar way.
TOM: And the stars look *very* different today!
> Look at the slant of the shadows inside the open cargo
> bay, then ask yourself: "Where is the light coming from to make
> shadows like that?"
>
JOEL: Is it too much to ask for just *one* of these evil, all-
encompassing conspiracies to show some basic competence?
> The impossible shadows which we saw in the Shuttle bay video
> tapes are just one small example of the many discrepancies in the
> NASA hoax.
CROW: Well, enough weasely nitpicking for now. On to the
unsubstantiated generalisations!
> More to the point, NASA has pretended that the
> Columbia flight this month was the very first shuttle flight into
> space.
JOEL: That *is* one rich fantasy life they've got going there.
> We are supposed to believe that the only previous shuttle
> operations were a few gliding tests launched from mid air by
> another modified 747. Nothing could be more ridiculous or more
> untrue.
>
CROW: Well, how about tiny golems made entirely of chewed bubblegum
cleaning toasters while you sleep?
TOM: No... that's *just* a little more plausible.
> There is one very obvious question about the Space Shuttle
> Program which NASA has always managed to side step. Somehow no
> one ever quite dares to ask it.
JOEL: Come on, they ask how the astronauts go to the bathroom all the
time.
> The question is: Why wasn't the
> space shuttle "Enterprise" the first to be sent into orbit?
TOM: Maybe because under no circumstances were they going to put
Shatner up there for real?
> After all, the Enterprise made its public debut nearly four years
> ago in the summer of 1977.
>
CROW: But the single just didn't sell, so the big concept album was
delayed.
> To all outward appearances, the Enterprise looks almost
> identical to its sister ship, the Columbia.
TOM: But *inside,* it's gold velour all the way!
> The differences
> between the two are so subtle that you would never notice them
> unless you knew exactly what to look for. The engines of the
> Enterprise look just like the engines of the Columbia.
JOEL: Hey, I bet Beter's TV is one of those cardboard boxes you find in
the furniture stores. They look just like the real thing!
CROW: Wow, no wonder he's so down on it.
> The
> Enterprise is also covered with the same system of thermal tiles
> as the Columbia, so again, the question is: Why wasn't the
> Enterprise sent into orbit long ago?
CROW: [Scotty] Because ah canna *do* it, Captain! Ah canna change the
laws of physics!
> Why did NASA wait three
> years and more to launch the Columbia instead? The answer, my
> friends, is that the Enterprise was designed to be a training
> ship for shuttle astronauts. It is not meant for orbital flight.
TOM: What? He goes to great lengths to imply Enterprise is orbit-
ready, then turns around and says it isn't?
CROW: Well, hey. The paranoia's been seeded. They can fertilize later.
> Instead, it is specially equipped to make shorter, suborbital
> flights into space. In effect, it can do everything short of
> going into earth orbit.
JOEL: It can scale the highest mountains and plumb the ocean depths!
...In effect.
> It can climb to orbital altitudes as
> high as 125 miles before dropping back to earth.
CROW: ...Oh, I see. Well, the crop's coming up fast!
> This enables
> astronauts to practice working in weightlessness for up to five
> and one-half minutes at a time. It also allows astronauts to
> practice landing the shuttle, slowing down from speeds of around
> 5,000 miles per hour.
>
TOM: Simulators? Hah! They're for wusses!
> The Enterprise is exactly like its sister ships in the crew
> compartment and cockpit. What makes the Enterprise radically
> different is the cargo bay area.
CROW: It carries fifty thousand copies of "I Am Not Spock."
> The Enterprise cannot carry
> cargo because the bay area is taken up by rocket fuel tanks. The
> tanks of the Enterprise can hold well over 100,000 pounds of
> rocket fuel when fully loaded.
TOM: But it's not as full a load as *this* thing!
> To make a suborbital hop into
> space, the Enterprise is perched on top of a modified Boeing 747
> known as the "Launch Aircraft."
JOEL: Hey, he stole that from "Moonraker!"
> Inside the 747 there are
> technicians with instruments and support equipment for the
> shuttle. The shuttle Enterprise is loaded with rocket fuel, and
> then the 747 takes off.
TOM: It took a few tries to get the sequence right, but part of the fun
of running a conspiracy is getting away with that kind of thing!
> At an altitude of around 40,000 feet,
> the shuttle is launched. The launch techniques are derived from
> the old days of the X-15 Research Airplane and others before it.
CROW: Bold, daring days, when men were men and chimps were chimps!
> The Enterprise is released from its mounts, rises up, and then
> falls back behind the 747.
TOM: Rise up, fall back, fight, fight, fight!
> As soon as it is clear of the 747,
> the Enterprise starts its rocket engines and zooms upward at a
> steep angle.
JOEL: Boring a hole in the sky, and letting all the air out.
> After a minute or so the rockets shut off,
TOM: Give or take, more or less... trust us on this one, okay?
> and the
> Enterprise is left to coast upward to its peak altitude and then
> drop back toward earth. From the moment the engines shut off
> until the shuttle begins re-entering the atmosphere five or six
> minutes later, the astronauts inside are weightless.
>
CROW: I thought it only stayed up there for "up to" five and a half
minutes.
JOEL: Well, it averages out that way.
> Astronauts Young and Crippen made more than half a dozen
> training flights like this aboard the Enterprise before they
> lifted off aboard the Columbia at Cape Canaveral. That is why
> they were so ready to go all the way into orbit.
CROW: Bravery's for cowards!
> They had
> already done everything else that was necessary to work their way
> up to it. Of course, other training was necessary to work their
> way up to those suborbital flights aboard the Enterprise.
TOM: Yes, in Beter's world, you have to wriggle before you can crawl.
> For
> one thing, they spent many hours in the detailed replica of the
> shuttle which is housed inside a modified Boeing 747. The
> "Flying Mock-Up", as it is called,
JOEL: By people so much more pleased to be working with it than with a
dull old "Launch Aircraft."
> is a simulator designed to
> acquaint astronauts with shuttle operation as realistically as
> possible.
TOM: Throwing switches at thirty thousand feet has to be more realistic
than at sea level, right?
> One of its advantages is that it can even provide
> periods of weightlessness of up to about 45 seconds.
CROW: Perfectly preparing the astronauts for missions up to forty-five
seconds long!
TOM: Oh, come on! There's no way the frail human body could function
for forty-five seconds in freefall without slowly working its way
up to that!
> The 747
> pilot does this by flying a precise arc through the air called a
> "parabolic trajectory." It's an old technique developed a
> quarter century ago to help astronauts get accustomed to
> weightlessness.
>
TOM: One glorious quarter century of space sickness!
> All of these things and more were originally conceived and
> developed for purely technical reasons,
CROW: Because who *would* dream up so many complicated machines just to
drive a conspiracy, hmm?
> but they are being kept
> secret from you because the Bolsheviks who now control NASA have
> turned them into tools of deception against you and me.
JOEL: So no, Beter's not fooled like us, but at least he's suffering
too.
CROW: By concealing the absurdly complicated training of the astronauts,
they will *rule the world!*
> Lately,
> publicity about the Space Shuttle Program has been focused on
> three geographic locations.
TOM: Mere places aren't good enough for it, no sir!
> One is the launch site for orbital
> missions, Cape Canaveral, Florida.
JOEL: Specifically, that Kontiki Village joint.
> Another is Edwards Air Force
> Base, California.
CROW: Specifically, Pancho's Happy Bottom Riding Club.
> The third is that old stand-by, the NASA
> Manned Space Flight Center in Houston, Texas.
>
TOM: [chuckling] Ah, you old stand-by!
> As always, we are being distracted from paying serious
> attention to the one area that is most important of all.
JOEL: As *always!*
CROW: They don't hold with that fancy hiding-in-plain-sight, no sir!
> It is
> the missing link, the true nerve center
TOM: The ticklish spot, even.
> of the entire Space
> Shuttle Program. My friends, I'm talking about the White Sands
> Missile Range in southern New Mexico.
>
> Most people today rarely give a second thought to White Sands.
CROW: Well, I'm filled with shame.
JOEL: I'll make it my business to think about White Sands every waking
hour too.
> Few people remember that White Sands is where America's Space
> Program got its start after World War II. Captured German V-2
> rockets were taken to White Sands
CROW: And I'm sure the fact they're *German* counts for something.
> to be studied and test fired.
> After the V-2s, there were American rockets, the Navy's Viking
> series,
TOM: ...The Army's Packer series...
> and others. They were launched, rocketed upward into the
> fringes of space, and came back to earth--all within the
> boundaries of the vast White Sands Missile Range.
CROW: And there's got to be something suspicious about rocketing to the
fringes of space away from settlements!
> One time a
> missile got out of control, veered south, and almost destroyed a
> small Mexican town when it crashed to earth;
CROW: Whoops, my mistake.
> but that incident
> was a dramatic exception to the normal situation.
JOEL: "It's not my department," said Werhner von Braun.
> Most of the
> time, no one outside White Sands even knew when rockets were
> launched.
TOM: But every so often, they just *had* to cut loose with the klieg
lights.
> Recently the public has been made aware of the vast
> wide-open spaces that constitute Edwards Air Force Base in
> California.
JOEL: Wide-open spaces, the keystone of the manned space program!
> For comparison, White Sands is so huge that it would
> hold nearly 100 Edwards Air Force Bases!
>
CROW: Size equals suspicion, I see!
> White Sands, my friends, is the training base for space
> shuttle pilots;
JOEL: Give them room to run; it'll tire them out.
> and since late 1977 it has also become much more.
> It is the geographic key to the secret military missions which
> are now the central focus of the Space Shuttle Program.
TOM: *Somebody's* got to figure out just what's going on down there!
> The
> Shuttle Program today is being managed in a way that is far
> different from the original plans.
JOEL: They toned down the office Christmas party, but really picked up
on the martini power lunches.
> In August 1977 we were shown
> early gliding tests of the training shuttle Enterprise. The plan
> of NASA was to drum up public support for the Shuttle Program,
> just as they had done a decade earlier in the Moon Program.
>
TOM: So right away, you know they're up to no good! Right?
> In AUDIO LETTER No. 26 I detailed how the Apollo Program, the
> biggest military program in American history, was disguised as a
> peaceful scientific venture.
CROW: [JFK] I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving
the goal, before this decade is out, of nuking the Moon real good!
> In the same way, the original plan
> was to bathe the military Shuttle Program in the glare of
> deceptive publicity.
TOM: Such as playing up the valuable spinoffs of deceit and deception.
> In the process we would have learned about
> the suborbital space capability of the Enterprise. Even the
> crucial White Sands would have received more publicity.
>
CROW: So they bought themselves a big batch of whitewash.
> What changed it all was the secret "Battle of the Harvest
> Moon" in space September 27, 1977.
JOEL: With a name so cool, it seems kind of a shame to keep it secret.
> This secret space battle,
> which I made public that month in AUDIO LETTER No. 26,
TOM: A public secret space battle, and the AUDIO LETTER makes it all
possible!
> took place
> barely one month after the first gliding tests of the space
> shuttle Enterprise. Russia's military take-over of space was
> under way!
>
TOM: Because the first flight of a big glider *has* to be a deliberate
provocation!
CROW: That, and it gave Beter his segue out of reality for that month.
> Only the next month, October 1977, a newly operational Russian
> Cosmos Interceptor shot down SKYLAB.
TOM: Not just Skylab, but SKYLAB!
JOEL: And I think Beter definitely saw "Star Wars" a few too many times
in 1977.
> SKYLAB, along with its crew
> of five American astronauts secretly aboard, died in a giant
> fireball over the United States.
CROW: They could have done it where it wouldn't have been noticed, but
the Russians just love adding insult to injury.
> I reported on SKYLAB's fate
> that month in AUDIO LETTER No. 27, and also revealed that NASA
> was initiating a prolonged cover-up of what had happened. NASA
> wanted everyone to forget about that mysterious headline-making
> fireball,
TOM: Because when I think of fireballs, I *immediately* think of
SKYLAB!
> so they pretended that SKYLAB was still in orbit but
> sinking unexpectedly.
JOEL: Thereby making people nervously watch for it--hey, wait a
minute...
> NASA used stories about the space shuttle
> as part of their SKYLAB cover-up. They pretended that perhaps
> the shuttle would come along in time to save SKYLAB. As I
> reported then, that was a double lie by NASA.
CROW: [Beter] First, because I said so, and second, because I said so!
> First, SKYLAB
> could never be saved because it had already been destroyed.
TOM: 1979 must have been a very confusing year for Beter.
JOEL: He probably muttered about giant dirigibles dropping flaming
wreckage on Australia and felt better.
> Second, the United States was in no position at that time to
> launch the shuttle or anything else of a military nature into
> space.
CROW: Hey, I was right!
JOEL: Oh, they *tried* tie-dying them, they tried those big flower
stickers, but the Russians could tell what rockets were military.
> Russia was deploying her secret new Space Triad of
> advanced manned space weapons.
>
JOEL: So they have to wait their turn.
> America's previous military control of space had been totally
> shattered by Russia. Our military base on the moon had been put
> out of action in the "Battle of the Harvest Moon."
TOM: Not even SPACOM could save it.
> Russian
> Cosmos Interceptors had started sweeping the skies clear of
> American Spy Satellites, and Russian hovering electrogravitic
> weapons platforms, the Cosmospheres,
JOEL: Powered by the "but it *sounds* cool!" drive.
> were making headlines by
> creating enormous air booms along the East Coast and elsewhere.
CROW: Enormous air booms! We've *got* to surrender!
> All of these things took place just as America's Space Shuttle
> Program was getting off the ground.
>
JOEL: So even with the skies swept clear, things were still kind of
crowded overhead.
> The result was a complete reorganization of the Shuttle
> Program. The old plans to bathe it in continuous publicity were
> thrown out.
CROW: 'Cause the bath would make it all wrinkled and squeaky.
> The Bolsheviks here, who have replaced the
> Rockefeller cartel in many areas of power,
TOM: So the secretive, insidious cabal ruthlessly seized control...
from *another* secretive, insidious cabal.
JOEL: You know, that's really kind of depressing.
> cast a net of secrecy
> over all these new military plans.
CROW: Can't you usually see through a net?
JOEL: The Rockefellers used up all the veils of secrecy on their killer
rabbit experiments.
> We were never told about many
> of the capabilities of the training shuttle Enterprise,
TOM: Such as the eight-track, and the rich Corinthian leather seats,
and the little hook for the pine tree air freshener!
> and we
> were never told about the many things which are going on at White
> Sands in the military Shuttle Program.
JOEL: Such as the secret softball league and the secret bridge club.
> By keeping these things
> secret from us, the Bolsheviks here have placed themselves in a
> powerful position to deceive us.
>
CROW: Suppose they kept things secret and none of it mattered?
> We have never been told about the modified NASA 747 which
> carries a complete replica of the crew quarters and cargo bay of
> a shuttle.
TOM: And we've been subjected to some evil, evil things, but that's
*really* something!
> Therefore we are unaware that this airplane,
> originally intended for training, has become a Bolshevik tool of
> deception against us.
JOEL: One of these days, the Mensheviks'll want a piece of the action
too...
> When we saw video tapes of astronauts in
> the simulated Shuttle cockpit, we naturally thought it was the
> real thing.
CROW: We being depressingly unparanoid and all.
> Seeing a notebook float in mid air for a few seconds
> next to the astronauts, we were supposed to think: "They are
> weightless because they are in orbit."
JOEL: But instead, we thought to go out and buy pens.
> We were given no clue
> that these moments of weightlessness had taken place months
> earlier in a 747 flying a controlled arc through the air.
TOM: Nor were we given any clue they had been filmed the night before
using lots of wires.
CROW: Come on--where's the fun in *that?*
> Likewise, we were shown one or two episodes of the astronauts
> moving around the cabin,
JOEL: And my favourite was the one where Bob tried to fix that leaky
fishing boat without John knowing it.
> obviously weightless for up to three or
> four minutes. What we were not told is that these scenes had
> been video-taped months earlier during suborbital space hops by
> the training shuttle Enterprise.
>
TOM: So they spent their training flights scrambling out of their seats
to tape themselves making lunch or cleaning house and then
scrambling back?
JOEL: They've obviously got to practice the important things they'll be
doing in orbit.
> Many of my listeners have called or written
CROW: Okay, the ramshackle conspiracy's all fine and well, but don't you
think you're starting to get *just* a little fanciful here?
> with the same
> observation about the first of these episodes shown the day of
> the launch.
JOEL: That the laugh track was used with remarkable subtlety.
> We heard the alleged "live" conversation of Young
> and Crippen, and yet, in the television picture, they were not
> moving their lips.
TOM: Ventriloquists... in SPACE!
> They had merely posed for the camera during a
> suborbital flight months earlier, and they recorded the sound
> track we heard only days before the launch.
>
CROW: And nobody else noticed this...
TOM: The AUDIO LETTER subscribers are discerning. They pick up on fine
details like that.
> While NASA may have fooled you and me about the Space Shuttle,
> they did not fool the new rulers of Russia.
JOEL: They keep *their* subscription to the AUDIO LETTER paid up.
> They learned last
> fall what the flight of the Columbia was really all about; and,
> my friends, when the Columbia was launched two weeks ago, the
> Russians were ready and waiting!
>
TOM: They had banners, and party hats, and balloons, and even a nice
cake!
> Topic #2--A month before the shuttle "Columbia" blasted off from
> Cape Canaveral, the two astronauts who were to ride in it held a
> news conference in Houston.
JOEL: But enough with those ominous lurking Russians. Let's move on to
something more important.
> The day was March 9, 1981.
> Astronaut Robert Crippen caught the attention of the reporters
> when he said:
>
CROW: [Crippen] You know, I think I really like vanilla.
> "I think the odds, with the way we've designed the mission
> right now, are that we will probably come home early."
>
TOM: So topic two is Bob cleaning up with the bookies?
JOEL: Hey, it's devious.
> Then he added, quote:
>
> "As far as John and I are concerned, if we get up and get down,
> it's a success."
>
JOEL: But if they can get funky too, they'll be *really* happy.
> Those words of astronaut Crippen about a short mission were more
> accurate than most people realized.
>
CROW: So it's all right if they give the secret away so long as they're
smug about it?
> The real mission plan, which I had already made public in
> AUDIO LETTER No. 62, was for a short mission.
JOEL: Well, *this* seems smug enough about it.
> The astronauts
> were supposed to get into orbit and deploy the military satellite
> from the Columbia's cargo bay very quickly, then they were to
> return to Earth--not aboard the Shuttle but in a special re-entry
> capsule.
TOM: Which kind of defeats the point of them working ever so gradually
up to the real thing, but who are we to tell this giant conspiracy
how to do things?
> Two days later they were supposed to land the disguised
> shuttle "Enterprise" at Edwards Air Force Base as the final act
> in the falsified drama staged for our benefit.
>
CROW: Wow, staged for *our* benefit!
JOEL: They had a pledge drive at White Sands and everything.
> In AUDIO LETTER No. 62 I described the military purpose of the
> mission in detail.
TOM: AUDIO LETTER number sixty-two! Ask for it by *name!*
> For the first time in three years the
> Pentagon was hoping to get a Spy Satellite into orbit that could
> not be shot down immediately by Russia.
JOEL: It figured the "underdog" part finally outweighed the "evil" part.
> I also outlined
> important features of the flight plan which had been conceived
> for the Columbia. Now I want to give you more details about that
> and tell you how it turned out because, my friends,
CROW: [Beter] If I can milk it for another month--why not?
> the
> Bolsheviks here in the Government are now planning to try it
> again with a second shuttle flight presently scheduled for the
> fall of this year 1981.
>
TOM: Wow! I'm on the edge of my seat! Will the Earth *survive?*
> Knowing what happened this time, I believe you will be far
> better prepared to see through it all next time. If you can
> think back to American space launches of the past,
CROW: [Beter] If your television-addled brains can grope back that
far...
TOM: Giving a new meaning to that "my friends" refrain of his, huh?
> you may have
> noticed something very unusual about the launch of the Columbia.
> In the past, manned space launches from Cape Canaveral
TOM: In that vanished golden age when our massive secret military
program went unchallenged.
> have
> always been made toward the southeast, toward the equator, but
> not this time. The Columbia was launched to the northeast, away
> from the equator.
JOEL: You'd think Beter would be *impressed* with all the new stuff
they're trying.
> The reason for this, my friends, was the
> secret space reconnaissance mission of the Columbia.
>
TOM: It's a secret mission! It's a secret reconnaissance mission!
It's a secret *space* reconnaissance mission!
> In its public news releases, NASA told everyone that Columbia
> was launched into a 44-degree orbit--that is, it would never go
> further north or south than 44 degrees above and below the
> equator.
JOEL: It's forty-four degrees of separation.
> But the actual orbit chosen for the Columbia was a
> 69-degree orbit.
CROW: Hey, the orbit of sixty-nine!
> A 69-degree orbit was chosen because it would
> take the Columbia, and the Spy Satellite inside it, all the way
> north to the Arctic Circle and beyond.
TOM: Sorry, that's their only reason.
> That is the kind of orbit
> that is necessary if a spy satellite is to fly reconnaissance
> over Russia.
>
JOEL: Whereas the even more impressive ninety-degree orbit is necessary
to spy on Santa Claus.
> The northeast launch of the Columbia was done in order to
> enable the Spy Satellite to start gathering data over Russia only
> minutes after the Columbia reached orbit. These days time is of
> the essence in any attempt to spy on Russia.
TOM: No more *easing* into your high-tech espionage--alas!
> Every American spy
> satellite launched at Russia during the past three years has been
> blinded or shot down before gathering much data.
>
CROW: Took 'em three years to figure it out, too.
> The secret flight plan for the Columbia was completely
> different from what NASA claimed in public.
TOM: That being the whole justification of secret plans in general,
after all.
> The plan called for
> Columbia to be launched on an initial northeast course in the
> general direction of Bermuda,
CROW: Oh, man... is the Bermuda Triangle going to come into this?
JOEL: No, that would just be fanciful.
> then roughly 2-1/2 minutes after
> launch, Columbia was to begin an unorthodox course change--a wide
> sweeping turn into the north.
TOM: One of these days, they'll even work up to sharp turns. But not
today.
> This unprecedented curving launch
> was intended as an evasive maneuver. Planners of the Columbia
> mission believed this would enable Columbia to sneak past any
> Russian Cosmospheres that might be waiting overhead.
JOEL: As well as any flame-spewing, smoke-trailing rocket can sneak,
anyway.
> Still
> accelerating on its curving course, the Columbia was supposed to
> pass about 100 miles east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
> Roughly 200 miles east of Washington, D.C., the Shuttle's main
> engines were to cut off.
TOM: They don't want to wake the President early.
> After coasting in silence for a few
> seconds, the fuel tank was scheduled to cut loose as the Columbia
> passed 100 miles east of New Jersey.
CROW: 'Cause we all know New Jersey's a *great* place to cut loose.
Whoo!
TOM: Schedule it, even!
> For the next two minutes
> the Shuttle and its fuel tank were to be coasting onward past the
> east tip of Long Island, over Boston, and onward toward Maine.
JOEL: Hey, we'd be impressed if it only got close to Boston in that
time.
> During that time the Shuttle was supposed to maneuver away from
> the fuel tank, using small maneuvering jets. Finally, just as
> the Columbia passed over New Brunswick, Canada,
TOM: About *time* it got out of the country!
> the flight plan
> called for the orbital maneuvering engines to be fired.
> Somewhere over the Labrador Sea, flying upside-down, the Columbia
> was scheduled to reach earth orbit.
CROW: Schedule it somewhere, anywhere!
> As soon as it did so, the
> flight plan called for astronauts Young and Crippen to go to work
> fast. In less than 10 minutes time they were supposed to open up
> the cargo bay doors and turn on the sensors of the Spy Satellite
> resting inside.
TOM: After all the five-minute missions they'd flown before, though,
you'd think ten minutes would be nice and leisurely...
> As they did these things, the Columbia was to be
> racing over the south tip of Greenland, out over the middle of
> the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland,
JOEL: Beter's got an atlas, and he's going to use it.
> above the
> Arctic Circle, and then dipping back southward toward northern
> Norway, Finland, and Russia.
CROW: Its desperate mission: to *finally* find out just what a "sampo"
is!
> According to the flight plan, the
> Columbia was scheduled to cross the Russian border just south of
> the strategic Kola Peninsula. The time: a mere 22 minutes, 42
> seconds, after lift-off from Cape Canaveral.
JOEL: Seventy-six percent of all people know including numbers makes
things sound more impressive!
> At that moment
> initial reconnaissance over Russia was to be under way.
TOM: Then they wackily discovered the *lens cap was still on!* Ha
ha... huh boy.
> The Spy
> Satellite inside the cargo bay, even though not yet deployed,
> would have had a perfect view downward through the open doors of
> the upside-down Shuttle.
>
CROW: Remember, the enemy's base is *down.*
> The Columbia was intended to fly over a course across Russia
> that began just west of the strategic White Sea in extreme
> northwestern Russia.
TOM: To sum things up: *Russia.*
> From there the planned course of the
> Columbia was to take it southeastward over some 2500 miles of
> strategic Russian territory.
JOEL: The strategic parking lot, and the strategic mini-golf, and the
strategic tire yard...
> During the first minute alone, the
> Satellite was expected to see parts of the highly sensitive Kola
> Peninsula, the White Sea,
TOM: Random locations! All very Russian!
> including the super secret submarine
> yards at Archangel and the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.
CROW: Not just secret, but *super* secret! Wow!
JOEL: Russia's got so much secret stuff, you have to go for the cream
first.
> The Shuttle was
> also to pass near Kazan, one of the bases of Russia's flying ABM
> system. This system, as I revealed a year ago in AUDIO LETTER
> No. 54, uses charged particle beams carried by supersonic TU-144
> transports.
>
JOEL: Well, maybe James Bond'll borrow a Concorde and save the day...
> Toward the end of the first pass over Russia the Spy Satellite
> was expected to gather data on two more of Russia's four
> Cosmodromes--those of Baikonur and Tyura-Tam. In between,
> numerous other war targets were also to come under scrutiny.
TOM: Now isn't it convenient that all of Russia's strategic points are
along one slightly curving line!
JOEL: Nah, it's just that you can't throw a rock without hitting one of
them.
> The
> Spy Satellite in the Columbia's cargo bay was expected to see all
> that during its very first pass over Russian territory. It would
> all take only 8-1/2 minutes!
CROW: Wow, that *is* impressive!... I suppose that's not what Beter
meant, is it?
> Then the Columbia would have
> crossed the border with Afghanistan, heading toward India.
TOM: When you've just seen everything strategic there is to see in
Russia, why not top it off with tandoori to go?
> Barely 10 minutes later, the Spy Satellite was to be radioing its
> data down to the American receivers at Diego Garcia in the Indian
> Ocean.
>
TOM: Staffed by Deadheads!
CROW: Well-stocked with ice cream!
JOEL: With "Pac-Man Fever" playing in constant rotation!
> That was the plan, my friends. The Bolshevik military
> planners here were confident that their Spy Satellite would get
> at least this planned first look at Russia.
TOM: That seems like perfectly reasonable hubris to me!
> They were sure that
> Columbia's curving launch and the short time involved would
> prevent Russia from thwarting the mission.
JOEL: It might even make Russia dizzy trying to follow it.
> Columbia took off
> from Cape Canaveral at 7:00 A.M. Eastern Time, that Sunday
> morning. By 7:23 Columbia was expected to be over Russia
> already. By 7:31 Columbia was expected to be leaving Russian
> skies,
CROW: Fly the strategic skies of Russia!
> and by 7:45 that Sunday morning the military planners
> expected to have their first reconnaissance data from Russia.
>
JOEL: To be inspected, of course, after reading the Sunday comics.
> The plan sounded plausible, my friends,
CROW: Or at least it occupied *one* section of this AUDIO LETTER.
> but the Bolsheviks
> here are falling victim to the very Intelligence gap which they
> themselves created in America years ago.
TOM: Gentlemen, we *must* allow trash-can, intelligence, and foot-path
gaps!
JOEL: We'll figure out why later...
> Russian Intelligence
> agents were able to learn the general outlines of the Columbia
> mission plan some six months ago.
TOM: Yes, when you want *competent* Bolsheviks, you might as well go
straight to the source.
> Fully one month before the
> public roll-out of the Columbia at Cape Canaveral last November,
> the Russian Space Command was studying the problem.
JOEL: So no, it's not *Beter's* fault they found out...
> There was no
> question about one thing:
CROW: Caviar makes for a great taste treat!
> The Columbia's mission could not be
> allowed to succeed.
CROW: ...Well, business before pleasure.
> Given even a shred of up-to-date
> reconnaissance data, the Bolsheviks in America are determined to
> set off nuclear war.
JOEL: You know... maybe we haven't fully appreciated Beter's
disappointment when the world didn't end on schedule.
CROW: Yes, Joel, but he rose above it and moved on.
> Even so, there was a question about the
> best way to spoil the Shuttle mission.
TOM: Should they unplug the refrigerator, or just leave it out?
> Several possibilities
> were considered, including sabotage or simply blasting the
> Columbia out of the sky. All were rejected because they shared
> one weakness.
JOEL: They wouldn't be exciting enough to justify an entire Doctor Beter
AUDIO LETTER.
TOM: A registered trademark of Audio Books, Incorporated.
> Each alternative would halt one shuttle mission,
> but it would not stop the Shuttle Program as a whole, and
> Russia's goal is to completely shut down the Space Shuttle
> Program.
>
CROW: And they can't be bothered with repeating themselves.
> At last they hit upon the solution. What was needed was a
> Space Age version of the famous U-2 incident of two decades ago.
JOEL: So they stuck Bono in a Ziggy Stardust jumpsuit?
> In the waning days of the Eisenhower Administration,
TOM: As Ike's golf scores marched inexorably downwards...
> Russia had
> publicly accused the United States of invading its air space with
> spy flights.
CROW: Well, what were they *supposed* to do with no AUDIO LETTERs back
then?
> That was before the era of Spy Satellites, and
> invading other countries' air space was a serious charge in the
> eyes of the world.
JOEL: After all, you can just ask politely...
> American spokesmen tried to defuse the
> growing furor while carefully avoiding a definitive denial of the
> charges; but the Russians kept it up.
JOEL: Diplomacy by nagging.
CROW: It works better than you'd think!
> Finally President
> Eisenhower became so exasperated that he flatly denied, in
> public, that America was flying spy planes over Russia. That was
> exactly what the Russians were waiting for.
CROW: And an exasperated public denial is *worth* waiting for.
> The Russians
> promptly did what American Intelligence specialists thought they
> could not do--
JOEL: They held a monster truck pull!
> they shot down a high-flying U-2 on a flight over
> Russia. The name of the CIA pilot, the late Francis Gary Powers,
> filled the headlines world-wide overnight.
TOM: Sure, invading another country's air space is bad enough, but when
*Francis Gary Powers* does it...
CROW: But his secret bean dip recipe *definitely* deserved the coverage!
> The Russians had made
> a liar of the President of the United States!
JOEL: And once they did that, *everybody* started in on the game.
> A summit had been
> scheduled between President Eisenhower and Nikita Khrushchev, but
> the Russians icily called it off.
>
TOM: Their plan worked that well, and they're just "icy?"
CROW: I wouldn't settle for less than barely suppressed glee!
> The Russian Space Command proposed to the Kremlin that the
> shuttle Columbia be made the focus of a similar incident. All
> that was necessary was that the Columbia be made to crash land in
> Russia reasonably intact.
CROW: Brr... It's disturbing when you put it that way. Can't we just
stick with "made the focus of a similar incident?"
> Having protested continuously about
> the military nature of the Shuttle Program, Russia would be able
> to stun the world by proving it.
TOM: The Russian complaints are *right?* That *is* stunning!
> They would put the crashed
> Shuttle on public display together with its nuclear-powered,
> laser-firing Spy Satellite.
CROW: After which, the satellite would break free from its bonds and go
on a rampage through the streets of Moscow!
> The Kremlin liked the plan,
TOM: It was just *delicious!*
> and
> agreed to it. To further emphasize the parallels with the 1960
> U-2 incident, Russia has recently proposed a summit with the
> United States.
CROW: It's those special little touches that make the Russians so
endearing!
> The plan was to withdraw the summit proposal in
> protest after shooting down the Columbia.
>
JOEL: Look, you're going to have a wrecked shuttle and a nuclear laser
spy satellite to show off. You don't have to get fancy.
TOM: Yes, but they just love adding insult to injury.
> The Russian Space Command went to work several months ago to
> get ready.
TOM: You know, you could have *told* us sooner!
CROW: Hey. If *he* can get his personal pipeline from behind the Iron
Curtain, he has no sympathy for us if we don't.
> They were faced with a tall order to bring down the
> Columbia on Russian territory without totally destroying it. As
> recently as a year ago it would have been an impossible task, but
> now Russia has a new space tool to do the job.
JOEL: The zero-torque titanium chainsaw!
> It is a third
> version of the Russian levitating weapons platform, the
> Cosmosphere. They are called "Super Heavies" by the Russian
> Space Command.
>
CROW: Kind of a boring name, but hey, when you're the only one with
something that big...
TOM: And yet, I still feel nostalgic for their first code name of "Tor
Johnsons."
> The Russian Super Heavy Cosmospheres are still considered
> experimental. Even so, the Russians have already built seven of
> them.
TOM: If they won't pan out, they *really* won't pan out!
> They are mammoth machines, the largest flying machines
> ever built. In terms of volume, they are even bigger than the
> biggest zeppelins of the 1930's.
JOEL: Oh, the humanity!
> They can carry a pay load of
> more than 50 tons, far more than our own space shuttle; and they
> are equipped with powerful electromagnetic propulsion which can
> take the Cosmosphere all the way to orbital speed.
JOEL: For as I'm sure you've heard, the nation that controls magnetism
will control the universe.
TOM: I'd always thought it was Silly String...
> In short, my
> friends, the jumbo Cosmosphere is Russia's space shuttle.
TOM: Only with it, a Getaway Special doesn't mean a can in the cargo
bay, but jumping in it and defecting.
CROW: To *where?* The United Bolshevik States?
TOM: Well, I've heard Sweden is nice this time of year...
> It is
> still experimental, but it is operating already.
>
JOEL: So we can only tremble anticipating *jumbo* air booms!
> In order to carry out their attack on the space shuttle
> Columbia, Russia's entire fleet of seven jumbo Cosmospheres were
> made ready.
TOM: Fuel in the tanks, vodka in the liquor cabinets.
> Five were outfitted with special grappling equipment
> to enable them to seize a very large object in space.
JOEL: Known as "nets."
CROW: Those Russians are always one step ahead of us!
> The other
> two were outfitted with neutron particle beam weapons. These
> weapons are the same type as were used in the "Battle of the
> Harvest Moon" in September 1977.
>
TOM: But wouldn't this be the perfect place to introduce one more
whiz-bang gadget?
JOEL: If they could polish off a moon base, one space shuttle
shouldn't be a stretch.
> At 7:00 A.M. Sunday morning, April 12, the rocket engines of
> the space shuttle Columbia roared to life.
JOEL: Oh, they'll do mornings. They just won't do them pleasantly.
> Moments later the
> giant solid boosters were fired, and the Columbia took off fast.
CROW: If it didn't look impressive, it would be the next to be
pink-slipped.
> As it climbed, it rolled around and started leaning into its
> flight path toward space.
JOEL: Lean into it! Go the distance!
> As we watched on our television sets,
> it rapidly dwindled off into the northeast. We watched as the
> solid boosters separated and peeled away to each side. Moments
> later the Columbia vanished from the screen.
>
CROW: And now, a word from our sponsors.
> The television scene shifted to the alleged Mission Control in
> Houston.
TOM: Phew! Good thing we're back to the innuendo after that terrifying
paragraph of simple description.
> It was the old familiar scene with rows of Mission
> Controllers intent on their consoles.
JOEL: And yet, we should have realised the subtle wrongness of every
console playing "Tetris."
> Up in front the NASA
> computer-controlled map started tracing the alleged course of the
> Columbia.
TOM: Working the knobs furiously, it managed to draw a diagonal line.
> According to the map, Columbia was heading out over
> the Atlantic toward Bermuda;
CROW: Steady chatter was being kept up about how great it would be to
hit the beach and catch some rays.
> but at that moment, free of the
> solid boosters, Columbia was already starting its long sweeping
> curve to the north.
TOM: Yes, nothing solid weighing it down now!
> One-hundred-fifty miles east of Charleston,
> South Carolina, Russia's fleet of 7 jumbo Cosmospheres were
> hovering high over the ocean.
JOEL: Six of them were complaining about the closest one blocking their
view of the city.
> As the space shuttle approached on
> its elaborate curving path, the Cosmospheres started speeding up
> to intercept it.
CROW: One space shuttle versus seven jumbo Cosmospheres. It feels kind
of unfair.
JOEL: I suppose that's the point.
> The Shuttle was already flying upside-down with
> the huge fuel tank on top. The two Cosmospheres armed with
> neutron beams closed in on the Columbia from below and slightly
> behind, where they could not be seen by Young and Crippen.
TOM: But what could they do about it?
CROW: Maybe a sudden, sheepish turn south again.
> The
> other five jumbo Cosmospheres with their grappling equipment flew
> in formation above and well behind the fuel tank to be out of the
> line of fire.
JOEL: Ominous formation, or long straggling line? *You* decide.
> The Cosmospheres paced the Shuttle until it
> reached a predetermined altitude and speed.
>
CROW: Whoops! Right altitude, wrong speed!
TOM: The speed's right now, but the altitude's wrong!
> Then the armed Cosmospheres opened up with their neutron
> beams. Firing at point-blank range, each Cosmosphere fired just
> two bursts from its beam weapon.
JOEL: The Cosmospheres aim to impress!
> The first salvo flooded the
> cockpit area and an area near the engines in the rear. Young and
> Crippen died instantly, the neutron radiation having totally
> disrupted all activity of their nervous systems, brains, eyes,
> and hearts.
TOM: And yet, their *livers* took a licking and kept on ticking.
> At the same time the Shuttle's engines shut down. A
> fraction of a second later, the second salvo flooded neutron
> radiation into the nose and an area beneath the cargo bay.
CROW: That neutron seepage always leaves a funny smell behind.
> These
> shots were calculated to derange and shut down the Columbia's
> flight computers--that is, all the computers except one.
JOEL: Neutrons can do anything!
CROW: Neutrons can sear in the juices for great flavour!
TOM: Neutrons can clean the toughest stains but leave the colour
behind!
> The
> Russians wanted the backup computer to take over and do its
> job--that is, make an emergency automatic re-entry and crash
> landing in Russia.
CROW: Programmed in by a nostalgic Bolshevik, no doubt.
> They anticipated that it would do so because
> the backup computer is heavily shielded against radiation. The
> shielding is a material more efficient than lead. It is gold!
TOM: Oh, *that's* rich.
> The Russians expected that the "Gold Computer", as it is known in
> certain circles,
TOM: For example, the Bloomsbury Group and the Algonquin Round Table.
JOEL: But mostly the AUDIO LETTER offices.
CROW: ...Does anyone else find it odd that these things heroically defy
the tentacles of the American Bolsheviks from inside the Beltway?
> would take over after the engines shut down.
> Sure enough, within 10 seconds after the engines shut down, the
> fuel tank, still a third full, was automatically cast loose. The
> Gold Computer was now flying the Shuttle.
JOEL: And it would have nothing to do with those base elements oxygen
and hydrogen.
> The five jumbo
> Cosmospheres with grappling equipment fastened onto the fuel
> tank. Then, using their powerful electromagnetic propulsion,
> they veered away with the tank.
TOM: Do you ever get the feeling they're sort of reaching for things to
do with their Cosmospheres?
> From its northeasterly course,
> the tank was swerved around over the North Atlantic in a great
> arc until it was heading southeast instead. The Cosmospheres
> then accelerated to orbital speed and cast the fuel tank loose.
>
JOEL: They're firm believers in the catch-and-release system.
> Three years ago the first Cosmospheres had sent a message by
> way of enormous air booms along America's East Coast.
CROW: And that message was, "Use Red Star Earplugs."
> Now
> Russia's newest Cosmospheres were using the Shuttle fuel tank to
> send a chilling new message to America's Bolshevik war planners.
>
JOEL: It took them eight years to figure it out, but eventually those
Bolshevik war planners arranged the crash of the Exxon Valdez.
TOM: Er, how does that further their fiendish plans?
JOEL: Well, you know. They're *Bolsheviks.*
> Meanwhile the armed Cosmospheres followed the Columbia itself.
CROW: There was no telling when the subtle power of neutrons might be
needed again.
> Having had its engines shut down prematurely, the Columbia was
> well below orbital speed. Instead it was following a ballistic
> path, just like an ICBM, into the heart of Russia.
TOM: Which is of course *very* reassuring to the Russians.
> It looked as
> though the Russian plan was going to work, but then the
> unexpected happened!
>
CROW: Wow! We've never seen *that* before!
> One of Columbia's deranged computers apparently started
> working again.
TOM: It's the kookiest computer in space!
> The brief shut-down had thrown it out of
> synchronization with the Gold Computer, so the two computers
> apparently did not communicate with one another.
JOEL: Lack of communication's always the problem, isn't it?
TOM: Beg your pardon?
CROW: I didn't catch that.
> As the Columbia
> passed over the border of Russia, it was flying right-side-up
> instead of upside-down under control of the Gold Computer. But
> the other computer opened up the cargo bay doors right on
> schedule.
TOM: It may be deranged, but it's still trying to make up for Hal.
> As the Shuttle began to re-enter over Russia, hot air
> flooded the cargo bay.
CROW: Just as hot air is flooding out from the screen here!
> Heat sensors in the Spy Satellite
> detected the heat build-up, which was programmed into the
> Satellite's computer as a sign of "attack damage."
TOM: And no doubt whipped cream on the lenses is a sign of "attack
damage" as well.
> Finally, the
> temperature built up to a critical point, activating a
> self-destruct circuit in the Satellite. The Spy Satellite
> exploded, blowing the Columbia apart.
>
BOTS: Whoah!
JOEL: Maybe our spy satellites just give up too fast...
> The Russians had hoped for a crash landing in recognizable
> form. Instead, the Columbia ended up in wreckage strewn along a
> line some 85 miles long in central Russia southeast of the City
> of Kazan.
JOEL: Ooh. Ouch.
CROW: Oh, and I suppose smearing the satellite's reactor core across
those eighty-five miles is all right because it's Russia?
> As it turned out, neither the Bolsheviks here nor the
> Russians got what they wanted.
JOEL: So what you're saying is, we're *all* losers.
> The Bolsheviks did not get their
> reconnaissance data, and the Russians did not get a recognizable
> space shuttle to show the world.
CROW: So more air booms! That'll do something! Eventually.
> That leaves the stage set for
> another "try" by both sides later this year.
>
JOEL: And I can only wonder how "hard" they'll "try."
> Topic #3--Sunday, April 12, 1981, was the 20th anniversary of the
> first manned flight into space.
TOM: Which could lead to thoughtful contemplation of where we've been
and where we're going, but never mind that: we've got a half-baked
conspiracy to get back to!
> It was the anniversary of the
> first orbital flight by a Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin.
CROW: Just to rub it in that the Russians have been kicking our sorry
Bolshevik tail for the past two decades, huh?
> It
> was also a day of total disarray among the Bolshevik masters of
> America's Space Shuttle Program.
>
JOEL: So basically, same old, same old.
> Less than eight minutes after launch that Sunday morning they
> knew something had happened to the Columbia. You and I were
> still hearing the sound effects of a seemingly successful flight,
> courtesy of the NASA tape recording from Houston.
CROW: Old-fashioned Texas courtesy, ma'am--big, bold, and brassy!
> But the
> military controllers at White Sands, who were following the real
> flight, were hearing nothing at all.
TOM: They realised too late there's *no sound in space!*
> Columbia had suddenly gone
> totally silent.
>
> At 7:45 A.M. the news got worse. Columbia had failed to
> arrive over the Indian Ocean on schedule.
>
JOEL: Planet Earth is blue, and there's nothing they can do.
> Before the morning was out, there was still more bad news.
TOM: All the yolks of the fried eggs were broken, and the dog had
chewed up the sports section.
> NORAD was tracking the fuel tank of the Shuttle. It was not
> supposed to be in orbit at all--but there it was, in an orbit
> that looked impossible.
>
CROW: The rare and beautiful corkscrew orbit.
> That evening, Sunday April 12, the Shuttle's fuel tank
> re-entered over the Gulf of Mexico just south of Louisiana.
JOEL: Hot and spicy re-entry, Cajun style!
> The
> tank had ruptured but there was still a sizeable amount of liquid
> hydrogen and oxygen inside.
TOM: Cheap construction.
JOEL: But at least it stays frosty to the last drop.
> When the tank re-entered it heated
> up and set off an enormous explosion, creating a giant cloud at
> the fringes of space.
CROW: Might as well do something with it, right?
> Gold plating, which is used extensively in
> the shuttle fuel tank because of its heat transfer properties,
TOM: Man, that shuttle was *loaded!*
JOEL: Well, the money had to go somewhere.
> was vaporized and scattered through the cloud. The result was
> the same as when gold is added in tiny quantities to stained
> window glass--a brilliant pinkish-red color.
JOEL: Wow, the *colours...* I *am* the fuel tank!
CROW: But note the careful allusion to sanctity.
> The giant pink
> cloud, with chunks of the ruined fuel tank flashing in the sun,
> created headlines as it passed to the northeast over Louisiana
> and Mississippi.
CROW: You'd think something spotted outside the States could be brought
up every once in a while...
> Meanwhile, Government spokesmen tried to
> pooh-pooh it all as, quote "a natural phenomenon."
>
JOEL: Because we all know nothing interesting can ever happen as a
result of mere nature.
> The Bolsheviks here still are not quite sure what happened to
> the Columbia,
TOM: And Beter's ahead of all of them? He watched all this through his
dimestore telescope, and they just ignored it?
JOEL: Well, you know. They're *Bolsheviks.*
> but they do know that as far as Space is concerned,
> the Shuttle Program is their only hope.
CROW: Aaw, I was hoping Obi-Wan Kenobi would still be that.
> They have three more
> orbital shuttles hidden away at White Sands, and they intend to
> launch them all no matter what the odds may be,
TOM: The Charge of the Bolshevik Brigade.
> so the NASA
> cover-up of the Columbia disaster went right on according to
> plan.
>
JOEL: That's your solution to everything, isn't it?
CROW: For a quick pick-me-up, try a cover-up!
> Two years ago I first revealed the existence of man-made
> genetic replicas of human beings. I was widely disbelieved and
> condemned at the time, just as I knew I would be.
JOEL: At least he's honest on *some* weird level.
> But they do
> exist, and once again they have been pressed into service before
> our eyes.
>
TOM: You'd think they would have proved useful during the Iranian
hostage crisis or the Reagan shooting or something...
JOEL: He just couldn't find his notes in time for the deadlines for
those tapes, that's all.
> Tuesday morning, April 14, genetic replicas called
> "Synthetics" of the late astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen
> were readied at White Sands.
CROW: White Sands is even large enough to hold a cloning lab *and* a
toenail clipping repository!
> They were programmed to take a
> computerized ride on the training shuttle "Enterprise."
JOEL: Wheee.
TOM: Insert one hundred million dollars in quarters to start...
> The
> Young and Crippen entities boarded the Enterprise, which was
> mounted on top of the launch 747. After rocket fuel was loaded
> for the shuttle, the 747 took off and headed west, avoiding
> commercial air traffic.
TOM: Oh, they wouldn't mind being seen, but they couldn't *quite* get
the doppelgangers to wave at the passing planes.
> The launch 747 headed out over the
> Pacific until it was several hundred miles west of Los Angeles.
> Then it turned back toward the east toward the California coast.
CROW: [singing] California, here I come, right back where I started
from...
> On television we were told that the non-existent Columbia was
> re-entering from orbit.
TOM: Then, we'll pretend invisible rabbits are handing out crisp dollar
bills!
> Meanwhile the "Enterprise", re-labeled
> "Columbia", cut loose from the 747 and fired its rockets.
JOEL: Cut those apron strings, and *fly!*
> It
> sped up to a speed of nearly 6,000 miles per hour, then we
> watched it as it made that dramatic race in from the sea to a
> precise computer landing at Edwards Air Force Base.
CROW: Wow, and the astronauts only ever bothered to slow down from
*five* thousand miles per hour.
TOM: Well, they've got something they *trust* in charge now!
> It was all
> timed to agree as closely as possible with the official NASA
> timetable.
>
> Even so, a technical mistake was made that morning
CROW: So they're already getting back to normal.
> and as a
> result we were told that the Shuttle would land six minutes
> early.
JOEL: Well, it's still close enough for government work.
> My friends, in space flight, six minutes might as well be
> a year.
TOM: And in an AUDIO LETTER, six minutes is a whole weird new area.
> Six minutes in orbit corresponds to nearly a 2,000 mile
> error in the location of the Shuttle, but on TV nobody bothered
> to question it.
CROW: Having all left their slide rules at home, you see.
> They all just smiled and said, "Isn't it a
> lovely day to watch the Shuttle."
>
TOM: Oh, now don't you just *expect* them to do that!
JOEL: It was either that or cheerfully expose the hoax.
TOM: Well, that's true.
> After the dramatic Shuttle landing, former astronaut Gene
> Cernan expressed surprise on ABC television.
JOEL: Millions were shocked.
TOM: Cernan hired another secretary to handle the mail.
CROW: Film at eleven.
> He said the Shuttle
> simply did not look scorched enough for a ship that had
> re-entered from orbit.
TOM: Instead, it looked like a heavily used training craft.
> Likewise, when the synthetics called
> Young and Crippen emerged, they did not act like men who had been
> weightless for two days.
JOEL: 'Cause we all know astronauts are *always* carried away on
stretchers.
> Instead they bounded down the access
> steps and pranced around with restless energy,
CROW: You know, for soulless inhuman replicants, they're awfully hyper.
> but no one
> questioned it. After all, we had seen the Shuttle landing for
> ourselves; and as that old saying goes, "Seeing is believing."
>
JOEL: Smelling is deceiving...
CROW: Feeling is squishy...
TOM: Tasting is yummy!
> Now it's time for my Last Minute Summary.
>
BOTS: Yaay!
JOEL: Wait, hold it, let's just hope it's not a last *football* minute.
> My friends, the score in America's Space Shuttle Program is
> now "One down and three to go."
JOEL: With the ball on the one-yard line.
TOM: I thought you said to hope this isn't football!
> Three more shuttles like the
> Columbia are waiting their turn in the desert at White Sands.
> Each will have the name "Columbia" painted on its side.
TOM: Wait a minute... is McElwaine trying to make us think that after
fifty-odd shuttle missions, they *still* haven't made it past the
Cosmospheres?
CROW: [sadly] And they eventually got tired of making copies, too...
> The real
> Columbia is now dead, along with its crew;
CROW: Oh yeah, and people died too, but they were probably bad.
> but thanks to these
> mechanical clones,
TOM: Or mass-produced copies.
JOEL: Yeah, but "mechanical clones" sounds so much more evil.
> the Columbia will live again in the public
> eye.
>
> I have given you as many details as time will allow
CROW: And we're all very grateful Beter can only afford C-30 cassettes.
> about the
> Columbia disaster and its cover-up by NASA. The point of it all
> is not whether Russia is ahead or America is ahead in the Space
> race.
JOEL: It's how they're playing the game.
> The point is that we are being deceived. We are being
> given a false sense of security and a false sense of confidence.
TOM: Whereas Beter can affirm his crawling sense of paranoia is
completely genuine.
> We are being led like sheep to slaughter into nuclear war and
> Bolshevik dictatorship.
>
CROW: So well-roasted mutton for *everyone!* The line forms to the
left...
> If we choose to believe their lies, then they will succeed,
> they will destroy our way of life, and enslave the few of us who
> survive their war.
TOM: So simple *trust* would make up for the Bolsheviks' inferior
technology and general incompetence?
CROW: That's oddly heartening!
> OR, we can learn to do as our Lord Jesus
> Christ taught us to do long ago.
CROW: Space shuttles carrying nuclear laser satellites may not have
worked, but I'm sure *prayer* will!
> We can learn to look for the
> truth, cherish the truth, and believe the Truth.
TOM: Wait, was that truth or Truth?
JOEL: Truth. Ask for it by name.
> If we do that,
> my friends, then we will always be free.
>
> Until next month, God willing, this is Dr. Beter.
CROW: [smug] Sorry! I already got *my* prayer in.
JOEL: Crow, please don't get started at competitive prayer.
> Thank you,
> and may God bless each and every one of you.
JOEL: [getting up] Aaw, and he stole that from Tiny Tim...
TOM: [as Joel picks him up] What? UN-altered REPRODUCTION and
DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT Information *isn't* ENCOURAGED?
Now I don't know *what* to think!
[Joel follows Crow out of the theatre.]
[...1...2...3...4...5...6...]
[SOL bridge. Joel, Crow. and Tom stand behind the desk, which the
Inflatable Disco Ball is still sitting on top of.]
CROW: Boy, was *that* ever a kooky one.
TOM: And yet, it almost makes you wonder if the Satellite has some
secret array of ...*special* capabilities of its own...
[Joel and Crow both look at Tom.]
TOM: *Almost.*
[Gypsy enters.]
GYPSY: Joel, there's a spaceship approaching!
JOEL: Cambot, give me Rocket Number Nine.
[Cut to a distant external view of the SOL, with a small satellite with
a spherical core and components strung out on either side in the
foreground.]
CROW: Hey, *that* looks familiar...
[Cambot cuts back to the bridge, where the Hexfield Viewscreen is
irising open to show Soviet cosmonaut Sorri Andropoli (from Show 205:
Rocket Attack USA. He can actually be seen very briefly in the opening
credits, but basically looks like Mike Nelson in a khaki, patch-
bedecked jumpsuit). Sorri's two motionless, reddish bots, Lucia and
Vitalek, are still in front of him.]
JOEL: Sorri! How are you doing?
SORRI: Oh, well enough, well enough.
CROW: Too bad the Soviet Union collapsed with you still up here... uh,
hope I didn't offend you.
SORRI: Oh, is no offence. I keep body and Soviet soul together by
making commercials for fruit and milk concerns... have occupied
mind through eavesdropping on your experiments.
CROW: [muttering] Talk about goodwill ambassadors...
TOM: Guess that's why you got in touch with us... but you must have
had your own skewed perspective on today's little outing.
SORRI: Hey, what can I say? Was crazy time for all of us. Is good now
that understanding of sort has been reached...
[The light inside the elongated, rounded head of Lucia begins to flash
on and off.]
SORRI: Hang on, am picking up something... [Sorri becomes rather
worried.] Uh-oh...
JOEL: Give me Rocket Number Nine!
[Cambot cuts back to the same external view. Now, though, a rather
large spaceship is approaching the SOL and Sorri's Soyuz 18, a
spherical ship in visibly poor condition but still bristling with
weapons...]
VOICE: Attention Andropoli! You are charged by Russian Space Command in
Exile of consorting with decadent capitalist Americans!
[Cut back to the bridge. Everybody is dashing around in a panic as
Sorri shrinks back in the Hexfield.]
GYPSY: It's a *jumbo Cosmosphere!*
CROW: Quick! Quick! *Find some gold!*
TOM: Even if neutron blasts derange us, Joel, *we will avenge you--*
JOEL: No wait, I've got it!
[He snatches up the Inflatable Disco Ball, whirls and kicks open the
pentagonal hatch near the floor next to the theatre doors (paper and
confetti are blown about the bridge as the bots reel) and tosses his
invention in.]
[Cut to the external view. In the vacuum of space, the apparently
metallic beach ball inflates to a quite respectable size, all but
challenging the jumbo Cosmosphere.]
VOICE: Arrgh! Americans have somehow equalled jumbo Cosmosphere in size
and destructive potential! *Retreat!*
[The jumbo Cosmosphere turns and flies off as the Inflatable Disco Ball
drifts away. Cambot cuts back to the bridge, where things are
returning to normal.]
JOEL: Phew.
SORRI: Er, thanks for rescue, but I think I should be going.
TOM: Well, don't worry about it. Hey, maybe we'll meet again some
day!
SORRI: Perhaps. Until then, as before, good health, self control, and
most important, good mood...
[The Hexfield irises shut.]
GYPSY: So...
TOM: Well, then...
CROW: Hey--if we're "decadent capitalists," then how come we're broke?
JOEL: I guess we'll just have to think about it.
[The mads' light flashes.]
JOEL: So what do you think, sirs?
[Deep 13. In the background, Frank has donned a welder's mask and is
attempting to blowtorch open the Collectible Safe. Dr. Forrester is in
the foreground, looking disgruntled as he talks on a red phone.]
DR. F: No, I *don't* need to know how your jumbo Cosmosphere was somehow
outwitted... I saw it! [pause] What do you mean, *how?* [pause]
Look, just find somebody else's number and sell this thing to
*them...*
[He hangs up and needs a moment to compose himself.]
DR. F: Push the button, Frank...
FRANK: [voice slightly muffled] In a minute... The hinges are starting
to soften!
DR. F: Oh, for...
[He pushes the button himself.]
[FWOOSH!]
-[Author's Notes]-----
This is my fourth solo MSTing; for my previous works, visit
. I would like to thank the SVAM
message board for general encouragement.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 and its related characters and situations
are trademarks of and copyright by Best Brains, Inc. All rights
reserved. Use of copyrighted and trademarked material is for
entertainment purposes only; no infringement on the original copyrights
or trademarks held by Best Brains, Inc. is intended or should be
inferred. Dr. Beter AUDIO LETTER #64 is copyright Audio Books, Inc.,
and Dr. Peter Beter. Anything remotely original within this MSTing was
written by Keith Palmer , and finished July 2003.
This MSTing is dedicated to all those who have actually lost their lives
in space.
> I was widely disbelieved and condemned at the time, just as I knew I
> would be.