Saturday, September 27, 2008

Chinese Astronauts Reportedly Under Age

Space experts today questioned the ages of the astronauts aboard Chinese space mission Shenzhou 7, claiming that they may have been as young as 12 years old, and not 41 and 43, as the Chinese government claims.

"We think they're kids," Neil Austin, a NASA spokesman, told a hastily assembled Cape Canaveral, Florida news conference. "First, the one who did the spacewalk had training wheels on his spacesuit. Second, Chinese mission control is reading them bedtime stories every night, and they are apparently doing math homework during the afternoons. And third, when the takeoff didn't go precisely as planned because of some atmospheric debris, both of the astronauts burst into tears."

The ages of Chinese gymnasts had come into question during the Olympic Games this summer. "They're big on child labor in China," Austin told reporters. "Gymnasts, factory workers, and now, apparently, astronauts."

The Chinese government at first vigorously denied the fact that the astronauts were minors, but eventually admitted the truth.

"Children are lighter and thus require less fuel to blast into space," a Chinese government spokesman told the Dissociated Press. "They also don't require expensive training--these two think they're in a theme park ride."

The parents of the two children, China's first astronauts, were first notified of the spaceflight "about two hours after it took off," the Chinese government spokesman said. "Their parents were first told that the children, a brother and sister from Szechuan Province, had been selected to appear on a television show. After they were launched into space, we told them the truth."

The astronauts are expected to return to Earth sometime Tuesday, "or sooner," the Chinese government spokesman said, "if they don't behave and go to bed at bedtime. They may be in geocentric orbit 22,000 miles above the earth, but rules are rules."

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