Crackin' on NASA

The online spoof news mag The Onion likes to routinely poke fun at NASA, and today brings another installment. The Onion staff makes fun of NASA's technological aptitude, writing that NASA has "an ambitious plan" to make the Johnson Space Center in Houston wireless. Within a decade. For only $655 million. "While the building that houses the public affairs office can currently pick up a weak Wi-Fi signal from a Starbucks across the street," The Onion cracks, "the Johnson Space Center as a whole is far from being the 'giant Wi-Fi hotspot' [NASA Administrator Michael] Griffin envisions." More yucks from the article:

Griffin said that the agency has also recruited seven information technology specialists from some of the nation's top white-collar regional workplaces. The seven mission specialists in the newly dubbed "Internet Explorer" program are being rigorously trained to install the theoretical wireless devices in an Earth-gravity environment in which they could encounter potentially arduous conditions such as poor air ventilation and lifeless workscapes.

My colleague Tom Shoop has chronicled other Onion parodies, one on the Department of Evil and another on NASA's plan to launch $700 million into space.