North Korea Successfully Launches 50,000 Kilos of Rice Into Space
Confusion reignedÂ acrossÂ the globe today as North Korea announced that it had yesterday successively tested a new orbitalÂ heavy lift launch vehicle by launching a massive payload of 50,000 kilograms of rice into low-earth orbit. The diplomatically and economically isolated Stalinist dictatorship Â -Â officiallyÂ known as theÂ Democratic People's Republic of KoreaÂ (DPRK)- revealed the May 21 launch on state television and boasted that its Juche I rocket willÂ heraldÂ  "a new era in the struggle against American imperialism of the heavens" A Rice Surprise The rocket had hitherto been unknown in the West and itsÂ successÂ comes as a shock to U.S. intelligence and space experts. "50,000 kilograms is a huge amount," explains an engineer at NASA, "Only our largest rockets can achive that kind of payload....We have no idea how they did this." "This is actually one of the least crazy things they've done" Contacts at U.S. intelligence agencies in Washington indicated that a program of this magnitude must have been hidden underground for decades, and have been a major drain on state resources. "We estimate that this launch alone may have taken up 10% of their entire GDP for the last two decades. The only way they could have hidden this is if all of their supposed nuclear facilities were actually working on this rice-to-space mission." Indeed of all the mysteries surrounding theÂ launch, Â the most confusing was the rocket's reported payload. As most orbital launchÂ vehiclesÂ are designed to carryÂ satellitesÂ or humans, experts were at first at pains to explain why North Korea decided to launch Â thousands of packages of rice and leave them to orbit the Earth. The answer came later in the day when the DPRK tweeted on its offical Twitter account a link to a document outlining the mission's purpose: ë¯¸êµ­ì ìëë¥¼ ëë°ë¡ ë³´ê³  ì´ë¦¬ìì ì ì±ì ê±·ì´ì¹ìì¼ íë¤.tinyurl.com/cab9vkp â uriminzokkiri (@uriminzok) May 21, 2012  Greetings Earthings The rambling press release explains that North Korea's Supreme Leader Kim Jong-unÂ decided to send the rice in order to appease a race of god-like space aliens called the "Shook-Lee" - which he claims were the original inhabitants of Earth before theÂ ascendancyÂ of homo sapiens and from whom heÂ believesÂ all North Koreans claim partial descent. The rice packages will stay in orbit for 3 years whereupon the aliens will return to re-claim their kingdom from the humans, sparing those who were wise enough to make a rice offering before their arrival. When the Shook-Lee land they will wipe out every nation on Earth except the generous North Koreans. The Hermit Kingdom will thus arise victorious in its long struggle against WesternÂ imperialistÂ tyranny and will once again dominate the world order under the guidance of Kim Jong-un and the new Shook-Lee occupation force. Western political observers were puzzled by the move, but few were entirely caught off guard: "This is actually one of the least crazy things they've done," says PiersÂ Jackson,Â a professor of KoreanÂ PeninsulaÂ studies at Columbia University, "And it didn't seem to hurt anyone. So. Whatever. It's North Korea." The document ends simply with: "Down with the vicious dog bites ofÂ AmericanÂ imperialism! Long live the blessed new kingdom of the Shook-Lee!" Â