1973: The NASA Mobile Orbital Radar Observation Network or MORON (understood to be a series of converted ice cream trucks) lost contact with Apollo 18 during a clandestine mission, just after the Apollo space program had been cancelled. The capsule's re-entry somewhere over the Pacific didn't end with the reassuring “splash” and chirping of inquisitive dolphins as the crew expected. Instead, the cracking of branches, squawks of cockatoos, and barking of gorillas ended their descent as the capsule veered widely off course. It came to a halt intact, hanging six metres from the ground in a small clearing, swinging gently by its parachute lines high up in the canopy of the rain forest
The crew of Apollo 18 had survived the fall to the forest floor but had promptly been eaten by the hordes of Giant Tree Ants that, unfortunately for them, were common in this area of the Congo.
In a secret document, it was later revealed that “a below-freezing situation of the communication radar electrical system” was to blame for the Apollo 18's extended blackout on re-entry. It concluded that the Mobile Orbital Radar Observation Network continued to operate as a popsicle van throughout the operation, with NASA's ground control head noting, "Some of the guys had a real knack of selling those ice lollies."
*A sub-note to the report noted that the $426 raised through “enthusiastic” sales of the Zoom ice lollys had been donated back to the Apollo 18 crew's families in the guise of a NASA “administrative error” in its pension plan.
More to come. When we get it.
