Fri, Apr 01, 2016
Buyers Plan To Establish Spaceport Arcadia
ANN April 1 Special Edition
A pair of enterprising Louisiana swamper brothers plan to establish a space launch company with a Falcon 9 booster they discovered while shopping at the local Army/Navy surplus store.
The pair, Caleb and Eustice “Bubba” Beauxelon, came across the previously-flown Falcon 9 rocket at their local surplus outlet while picking up supplies for the upcoming alligator hunting season. “We know that store owner right well,” Eustice said, “and he said ‘you won’t believe what I found while I was out pickin’ in California’. He took us out back and there was this rocket-lookin’ thing standin’ there.”
“At first we thought it’d make a right-nice duck blind,” Caleb said. “But then, when we saw it said ‘SpaceX’ on the side, and heck, we follow the news down here, we thought we’d see if we might be able to start up our own little business. Them guys are making billions with gov’ment contracts … why not get a piece of the pie.”
The brothers took the booster to the local body shop where it was repainted in the livery of their new company … RedneX … and struck a deal with a local moonshiner to fuel the rocket. “We always called that stuff rocket fuel anyway,” Caleb said. “So we figured it’d be worth a try. Now all we need is for Jimmy-Earl down the street … he went to college you know … to write us some software, and we’ll haul that thing out in the swamp and conduct a … I think they call it a ‘static fire’ … to see what kind of get-up-and-go it might still have.”
The brothers own several acres of mostly swampland where they hope to establish a launch complex which they’ve tentatively named “Spaceport Arcadia.”
“Our cousin Lester has a concrete business, so we reckon we’ll get him to pour us a pad to launch and land this bird,” Eustice said. “From there, all we’ve got to do is underbid some of those bigger guys, and we’ll never have to hunt a gator again.”
(Image provided by RedneX)
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