Heavenly Bodies!
Or, what have Parasol AAA been up to recently?
Let Belladonna Mistral elucidate:
It is axiomatic for autonomous astronauts that the ascent into space will herald a new stage in human evolution. The frail flesh forms which serve us reasonably well in the terrestrial environment will necessarily give way to sturdier forms better suited to zero-gravity living. (For the sake of argument we will call this new branch or sub-species of human Homo Universalis.)
The change will be effected by a number of adaptive, evolutionary or mutative processes. To give just one obvious example, the first of our folk to achieve successful union in space will be only the ones with the physical equipment, dexterity and single-minded sexual drive to do so. The sexual slacker will fail to pass on his or her genes in zero-G.
Thus, within a few short generations the mechanisms of sexual selection will produce a new, superior breed with prodigious docking tackle, slinky hips and a flair for experimentation. Strange as it may seem, Homo Universalis will not view sex as we Earth-dwellers do, as merely a tiresome reproductive chore, but as a rather pleasurable avenue of personal and mutual fulfillment.
Other adaptive changes will take place as we begin to colonise other worlds, vastly different from Earth. The effects of low or high gravity or ultraviolet radiation on our tissues can only be guessed at, but they will be significant.
Parasol AAA is impatient, we respect the blind force of Nature but we wish to give a helping hand to the unravelling of the full potential of the human genome.
With this in mind we have been conducting a whole series of experiments to pre-select the most suitable astronauts for a given environment.
Some hardy fellows have now spent several weeks in a sealed green house, with only aphids, tomato plants and their own exhaled C02 for company, to see if they really could get to love Venus as a new home. Others, with an eye on Mercury, have been living at gas mark seven in the oven for three days or hitching rides on doner kebab spits.
Many of our trainees have found it useful to prepare for low gravity Moon walks by undergoing week long, non-stop, bouncy castle raves.
With the exciting possibility of life in the oceans beneath Europa's ice crust, Millicent and Matt Fnooker have now taken to a daily routine of immersion in a bath of raspberry slush-puppy. Even that less-than-hardy cove Henri, feeling the tug of the Red Planet, was recently arrested (and then taken to hospital with a pulmonary infection) after emptying sacks of sand in the cool room at our local Kwik Save.
It is no wonder then that we were greatly interested in a piece we read in the Bourgeois press (Independent 11.08.1998) about Fred Kempster who holds the record for Britain's tallest man. Kempster banged his head as a boy and upset a regulatory gland or something which meant he grew to 8 feet 4.5 inches and was big in all directions (his 13 foot arm span made him the prized keeper for his local three-sided soccer squad).
So, with the intention of fitting ourselves for the physical stresses of life on a high gravity planet Parasol AAA members will shortly be seen in your neighbourhood, ramming each others heads against trees, macerating frontal lobes and soliciting small children to hit them with cricket bats.
Please do not be alarmed.
This is not sadomasochism but simply the striving of our selfish genes for extraterrestrial expression.
Reverse!
