Earlier this morning, the Britannia blasted off from Fort Mountbatten in northern England in a succesful launch with a crew of 6 astronauts from the Royal Air Force. To date, this is a crowning moment in the British Space Programme.
You are invited to share your thoughts on this historical event.
The North, eh?
Space and Technology Minister Lord Arthur Scargill said, in a speech later, that as the world's only coal-powered space vehicle,
Brittania was another justification for the violent overthrow of the Thatcher government of the 1980s and the installation of a Miners collective in Westminster. It was gratifying, he added, that all six Astronauts were members of the Miner's Union and all had previously worked down t' pit.
The
Brittania shuttle is just one of the benefits of Britain's move to the Coal Standard in 1986, freeing the country from the economic sluggishness caused by linking the old pound to unstable foreign currencies, said Lord Scargill.
The six astronauts aboard Brttania will have all of the comforts of home during their two week flight to Rendevous with the Polish space station
"Plonkski". The interior of the shuttle was designed by the same team that provided the decor for the House of the Workers that replaced the Houses of Parliament and Slagthorpe Working Mens Club, long considered the epitome of good taste. The formica worktops were personally designed by Lord Scargill and the curtains on the shuttle's portholes selected by his Auntie Doris. Unique among spacecraft, the bar is equipped with a device allowing Brown Ale to be dispensed in zero-gravity with almost no loss of head although the Astronauts will still have to use glasses with a specially adapted baby's teat attachment.
Despite criticism from American and Russian designers, the anti-gravity lavatory works perfectly despite being mounted on the outside of the craft.
Among the experiments the team will carry out in orbit will be to study the effects of zero gravity on picking horses for a trifecta, the ballistic properties of darts and the changes in the eating habits of whippets. One crew member will carry out an extremely important agricultural experiment during flight to discover if high g-forces can produce pea-plants that germinate ready-mushy.