I'm sure most of you will remember that back in '99 an American Spacecraft crashed on the surface of Mars. Instead of slowing down and making a gentle landing, it dropped almost as fast RIM shares and when it hit the earth, excuse me, when it hit the Mars, the wreckage was spread from here to Pluto.

If you are a technical-minded person like me, you probably saved the excellent article I wrote at the time. If not, I'll be pleased to send you a copy just as soon as the NASA lawyers and the U. S State Department return the document and let Mr. Bisset, the Managing Editor of the Orillia Packet at the time, out of jail.

My analysis of the miscalculations that caused this disaster was discussed in great detail among the members of the scientific community. The newspapers received many comments from astronomers and space buffs ranging from ' ravings of a buffoon' to 'there is a man who should be locked up, and quickly'.

The engineers at NASA, believe it or not, mixed up Imperial and metric measurements and 'whammo' another 300 million bucks was blown to space dust. I know how they feel. Converting one to the other can be confusing even to us scholars. I once tried to order a pair of pants in metric and in one swell foop wiped out the entire cotton crop of Georgia and Alabama.

I had been saying for years that this type of screw-up was bound to happen. We should never have listened to the Europeans and changed from Imperial to that metric and Celsius stuff.

Can you think of one European who ever amounted to anything -well, other than Sophia Loren and Anita Ekberg? I doubt it. Whether their measurements are metric or imperial it doesn't really matter, both deserve honourable mention in some book that should be stored under a teenage boy's mattress.

Now the same bozos that fouled up that landing launched another spacecraft to Mars. At the time of writing (April 18) it was scheduled to land in 109 days, 19 hours, 25 minute2 and 19 seconds.

I have no faith in NASA scientists. When I found out that not one of them could figure out how Cadburys put the caramel in Caramilk, I knew their space programme was in big trouble. And now the same clowns have a rocket hurtling across outer space at God knows how many kilopascals per metric foot.

I have this great fear that at this very moment a microchip inside the ship's computer is saying to itself, "Did that guy say, kilometres or miles? Maybe it was cubits. No I think it was miles. On the other hand . . . Oh to hell with it. I think I'll just crash land on the lawn at Queens Park. At least if I

wipe out a few square miles down there I'll be doing Ontario a service."

However I have another worry about Mars. According to Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, scientists discovered huge plums of methane gas in its atmosphere and we all know where that comes from. Methane is what animals, and you too (not me) expel whenever they (and you) are . . . how do I put this delicately?. . never mind I can't. I think we can live without more methane gas don't you? We get more than enough of that when Parliament is in session.

Ever since Galileo turned his telescope away from Mrs. Botticelli's bedroom window and aimed it at the stars, humans have been trying to get to the other planets. Actually Galileo almost made it.

When Mrs. Galileo caught him peeking at Sandi Botticelli she threw him out an upstairs window.

I have never quite understood this never-ending fascination with outer space. I certainly wouldn't want to go there. Of course I'm afraid of heights and have to be sedated to take the elevator to the third floor in the Eaton's Centre.

For years I didn't know the difference between astrology and astronomy, which practically ruined my love life. Whenever a striking blonde approached me in a bar and whispered, "Hey big boy, what's your sign?" I never knew if I should say Leo, or point to the sign on the men's room door. It never mattered anyway. It always turned out she wasn't talking to me.

She was putting the moves on the NASA scientist sitting next to me with a kilometre of beer.