“Nothing could ever go wrong by sending a baby squid into space. Not a thing.”

– YNOT Team Commander

Three weeks ago, NASA prepared to send new astro-tech into lower orbit as the latest in a series of research projects. These research projects are a part of the larger research initiative into space exploration called, Project YNot. After decades of sending highly tuned instruments and well-trained astronauts, space exploration became prohibitively expensive. According to our accountant each trip to space cost somewhere between 67,430 to 267,556,800,000 space dollars. That’s a lot of jars of Temecula’s finest peanut butter (anyone who would even eat almond butter is dead to me, you disgusting fuck). After four decades of doing things the best way possible and running out of money, a fundamental shift in research sought more cost-effective instruments and explorers to send to space.

“If space won’t come to us, let’s throw shit into space”

– unofficial YNot program motto at NASA HQ

Those beautifully erect, dick-shaped rockets didn’t last though. Eventually the rich assholes got bored and went back to pandering to political bullshit back on Earth by stoking the fires of divisiveness and social unrest, or just… I don’t fucking know, doing rich guy shit probably with a tub of almond butter. What would’ve happened if the rich assholes never made it back? How much would life have improved on this little blue marble? Look out for our upcoming fanfic novel where we address this issue by ‘shipping Musk and Bezos into a hilariously romantic threesome with Bluntozorp, Commander of the Twelfth Cavalcade of Zlorp and Cthulhu’s Personal Envoy of Space Destruction sent to do Earth destruction. Do they find true love on a long weekend in Paris, or rekindle their animal passions by systematically replacing humans with robots in the workforce?

At this point NASA was stumped. Doing space missions correctly was expensive. The limited supply of seriously rich assholes quickly burned out on being innovative and semi-useful to society. What was next? And, more importantly, what was cheaper? How could NASA study the effects of space for an amount closer to two #4’s at Wendy’s, a couple of #3’s at Mickey D’s, and maybe four #10’s at Burger King?

Enter research initiative, YNot. “If space won’t come to us, let’s throw shit into space” (unofficial YNot program motto at NASA HQ). The following is a clip from our audio interview with Charmles Smiff, PR Liaison for NASA Mission Control.

“Well, we weren’t quite sure what was going to happen really. We’d thought about so many things to send up, but y’know, the answer was there all along. Tacos. And we were like, ‘Duh! It’s so obvious!’ But Dale from mission control ate the last one. And man, we were really in a pickle. Launch was in two days and we were fresh out of tacos. It’s not like you can just brown some ground beef in a skillet, season to taste, spoon it into a bunch of taco shells then add lettuce, tomato, and cheese on top. Tacos are complicated, and that’s maybe where we went wrong. But without tacos, how would we appease and make offerings to Bluntozorp, parked just outside the lunar Lagrange point? How would we test the complicated chemistry of space flavor, or test our predictive models of space food mechanics?

“We were really desperate at this point. How do you run out of tacos? Two days before launch?”

At this point, morale was low at NASA headquarters. Launch was in two days. There were no tacos. What were those eggheads with their sexy suspenders going to do? This was a dark time for the team when, out of depression, most engineers took to a strong opium habit… or Reddit.

Then, with only 14 minutes left until launch, the team of engineers had an excellent idea. What if, instead of sending tacos into outer space they take a culturally inclusive approach and send a live baby squid instead. For so many clear, obvious, and exceptionally genius reasons, this was the moment where the NASA engineers really defined themselves as the experts we always thought they were. Jimmy, Junior Researcher in the Department of Xeno-Astro-Sacrifices, purchased a baby squid from the vending machine (situated between the Crunchums-Chippys at A1, and Temecula’s finest peanut butter at A3) and ran it out the door, down the 6-mile-long runway, up 40+ flights of retractable stairs as the countdown got ever closer to zero. Refrigerant and fuel hoses were popping off all around as Jimmy took one last look into baby ChubChub’s lone squid eye. In that moment, Jimmy knew, in the way that third-party readers are just supposed to believe that someone knew something without any reason, that baby ChubChub would change space exploration forever. Jimmy shouted “I LOVE YOUUU” as he threw the small squid into the closing compartment on the rocket, with just 1 second to spare.

“Thank you, God!” thought Jimmy as the rocket took off.

Mission Control cheered as the craft started another successful missing and team commander thought out loud… “Nothing could ever go wrong by sending a baby squid into space. Not a thing.” He then turned to his co-worker and shouted his name “It’s Miller Thyme!!”

1 second later Jimmy was instantaneously vaporized by the rocket burn. At a molecular level, Jimmy was no more.