BANGALORE, INDIA (Glossy News) — India plans to launch its first manned space mission in 2016, moving to become the fourth nation to put a man in space (fifth if you count Russia and the USSR separately, which many cold warriors do) — but it comes with a peculiar pro-business twist.
The estimated cost for the single mission is currently at a reasonable $2.76 billion – or about $2.43 per Indian citizen (most of whom earn less than a dollar a year), given 2010 population statistics. With India’s population growing at a 30% increase per year, they are going to need a lot more space year after year, and it looks like actual space is the only frontier they can push without getting shelled by the Pakistanis.
What’s the twist? The space craft, to be flown by two Indian astronauts, will carry a payload that will become a state-of-the-art call center space station manned by 350 “volunteer” lifers, with no chance of parole, from India’s State Prison System. The low-orbit space call center will circle the earth every 90 minutes, thus being able to assure its sponsors that potentially everyone on earth will have their breakfast, lunch and dinner times interrupted by at least one telemarketer.
The space mission is being financed by US telecommunications giants Sprint, Comcast, T-Mobile and Verizon – all direct competitors of AT&T. These companies initially plan a mind-numbing 24/7, 100-station call center manned by 300 prisoners not eligible for parole. The additional 50 lifers will man the construction crews needed to build additional call stations at the rate of 50 per month. IKEA has been contracted to supply these stations as they are such whizzes at packing so much into such small spaces.
Weekly round-trip space flights are planned to deliver the equipment needed for construction of the project. As each month’s quota of 50 call stations is reached, India’s prisons will supply 150 more “volunteers” to man those new 24/7 phones. This part of the project has been sublet to Virgin Galactic at Spaceport America, the world’s first commercial spaceport in Upham, New Mexico. In the historic way that early British ships full of prisoners were launched to settle Austrailia, Branson’s Virgin Galactic will launch India’s prisoners into space.
India’s senior space call center planner, Harr Y. Krishna said “my agency will develop the space module for the program within four years. Our project’s plans are for a 10,000 phone call center utilizing 30,000 callers for 24/7 coverage and 1500 or so support staff.”
Mr. Krishna enthused, “The India prison board is ecstatic about this as first, it is escape-proof – pushing the high cost for guards, as we like to say, over the planet’s edge; second, there is general agreement that this extra-planetary prison idea will have a very positive effect on lowering the crime rate in our country. And as we grow this concept, we will allow other countries to use it for their hard-core prisoners on a ‘space-available’ basis, if you will again please, pardon the pun.”
Then doing his best Ralph Kramden imitation, he pointed his finger upwards “Bang—Zoom, Alice! To the moon!”
“But the greatest news I saved for last! By 2020, we plan to have a permanent call center settlement on the moon. That will really open up those “pearly gates” for long-term prison storage. You know in September, India’s Chandrayaan-1 satellite discovered water on the moon, so India now will totally be the man in the moon.”
Now grinning from ear to ear, “Best of all we can’t wait for the call where we get to say, ‘Here’s looking at you kid,'” the planner said with his best Bollywood smile.
is this real or a joke ? sounds not real.
If they build a space station why would they have prisoners up there. I don’t think it works that way.
i this total message seems to insult Indians. Its created on Jealousy and Racist feeling. feel bad to have read this.
Very good, Bob. Clever!
Did you know that there was an old Sean Connery film about a similar ship? he played a prison guard on it.
Actually I was referring to Sagar’s original rant. Yours, I don’t have a beef with.
That wasn’t what I was saying, though now that you mention it, racists don’t tend to be the roundest wheel on the monster truck (and likewise, homophobes are never the straightest arrow in the quiver.) No, I was saying that rather than try to understand a language, I just speak slower and louder, frequently with wild, random pantomime. Figure one of these days it will make us see eye to eye.
Just to be clear, are you saying that only developmentally challenged writers are racist? Isn’t that a discriminatory remark?
@liberties-taken – You need to read it again slower AND LOUDER. Although it never helps get my point across when there’s a language barrier, I just can’t help myself.
I missed the insulting racist parts! Perhaps I should re-read it, this time slower.
Me thinks Mr. Sagar is a humorless grump!
@Sagar – We don’t currently have a policy in regards to checking brain development. I hope this addresses your concerns. If you have further questions Mr. Sagar, let me wish you a wonderful afternoon and thank you for choosing Glossy News. Good bye.
what a pathetic piece of article. I find it quite racist and insulting…do all people in your magazine have their brain less developed like this writer?