Megan with her Staff on the Space Center's Last Mission of 2011Annika, Hayley, Megan and Connor
Hello Troops,
Leave it to Megan and her staff to give me grief on the last day of 2011. The Space Center's last flight of 2011 (a Phoenix mission) had trouble with the Phoenix's cloaking device as the ship made reentry into the atmosphere. They rather unskillfully maneuvered across Russia, the Bering Sea, Alaska and Canada before making a rough landing at Central. Did Megan or anyone on her staff report this to me? Of course not - I am always the last to know when things go wrong.
The crew's failure to correctly balance the power in the cloaking device resulted in a spotting over eastern Russia. This sighting was videoed and uploaded to YouTube. The video immediately caught the attention of the Comptroller of the Imaginarium's Office of Unwelcomed Attentions (IOUA). The Comptroller called me this morning demanding an explanation. I stood there, phone in hand, mumbling something about a failure to communicate. I was reminded that all Imaginary missions fall under the IOUA's jurisdiction. He further reminded me that such imaginations could lead to the discovery of the Imaginarium.
"Humans must never know where the true source of their dreams and imaginations," he said.
"I am aware of that," I replied.
The IOUA is secretly feeding misinformation about the sighting to worldwide news channels in an attempt to deflect people's imagination from the truth. Extra staff have been brought in to ensure that everyone who sees the video believes that what they are seeing is a comet of some kind skimming through the upper atmosphere.
"Do you know how expensive it is to cover this up!" he shouted. "Imagine the overtime, AND it's New Year's Eve! This is coming out of the Space Center's budget."
"I knew they were having trouble on reentry," Megan explained. "We did our best to help them but sometimes there isn't much you can do. They either get it right or they suffer the consequences. That crew didn't get it right and the Phoenix cloaking device malfunctioned creating a differential in temperatures, which in turn caused a rapid condensation within the cloaking sphere, which became visible to anyone who..."
"Happened to be looking up?" I completed her sentence.
"Yes," Megan sheepishly replied.
So, while the rest of you party tonight, I'll be putting in overtime at the Imaginarium working to conceil the blunder by the last staff of the Phoenix.
Thanks.....mumble mumble......
Mr. W.
Betcha that was one of Russia's recent launch failures, where the satellite ends up crashing into Siberia. The scene was very similar to how the Space Shuttle launch looks from the other side of Florida, except that the clouds were diffusing the light around the engines.
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