Getting there.

Well, anyway… why do we have to do the same thing every time? I mean, I know safety is important, but frankly we can’t afford a spaceship at this point. Can’t we just hitchhike to Neptune?

Good god, man. Whatever happened to the spirit of adventure? We never used to be so risk averse. We used to bear to the left and take chances. Now look at us. (You can use a smoked glass lens, if you prefer.) We’re worried about lack of gravity, lack of oxygen, exposure to radiation – what a bunch of wimps! The only one who’s really not intimidated by any of this is the mansized tuber. (At least he hasn’t said anything about it to me.) Fact is, we have to do these tours on the cheap, what with a recession on and all that. Money’s tight, and our corporate label is even tighter. They don’t even want to budget for us, let alone a ship to carry us in. Looks like we’ll be relying on comped meals again. Ever try to get a free lunch on Uranus? Hah. Take it from me – it’s even less appetizing than it sounds.

As always, our mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee, had a suggestion. “We should use some kind of rocket ship,” he told us. “Perhaps a multi-stage space vehicle with sufficient kinetic power to propel us beyond the surly bonds of mother earth.” (Sometimes Mitch tries to wax poetic, though it usually comes out sounding more like someone waxing their car.) To translate from Pretentious Asshole-ish, our learned friend had a specific space vehicle in mind. It was based on the Korean design that Dear Leader is so very fond of. Mitch reasoned that, in as much as that type of rocket had successfully put a satellite in orbit just a few short weeks ago, it would probably serve us well. When I pointed out that the thing had actually, well, fallen apart and crashed into the ocean, he seemed a bit irked. It’s almost as if he wants us to crash and burn. Sometimes I wonder about Mitch. What kind of mad science advisor is he, anyway?

Okay… so the Kim Jong Il missile vehicle is not such a good idea. Well, you’ll be glad to know that others in our entourage piped up with suggestions. The quality of same? Well…. not so great. Matt though we should rehabilitate the Robinson’s Jupiter 2 spacecraft. I’m thinking this is a little unrealistic, since it was just a stage set and is now owned by some guy in New Jersey. Then there was that converted treehouse we took up a couple of tours ago. That thing was reduced to splinters over the winter. (I think the plows hit it – terrible thing.) So Marvin (my personal robot assistant) had little to add to this debate. Fact is, he’s thinking about joining the Marvin Depreciation Society, a facebook group devoted to “Marvin the Paranoid Android”, who is a character in Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I think Marvin is having a slight identity crisis over the fact of the other robotic Marvin’s existence, and is hoping the depreciation society will devalue the other Marvin, thereby enhancing his own value. Yeah, it’s complicated. (In addition, he and Professor John Robinson had words the other day, so it could be the Jupiter 2 option is off the table.)