UnNews:Pope divides disputed Moon between China and Japan
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This article is part of UnNews, your source for up-to-the-picosecond misinformation. |
20 November 2007
THE VATICAN, Dagostan After weeks-long sessions of intensive negotiation behind closed doors with Chinese and Japanese ambassadors, Pope Benedict the XIVth this morning announced a new Papal decree, "Inter caetera lunae", which will subdivide the Moon's lunar surface equally between China and Japan, the currently-reigning space superpowers.
Pope Benedict has infallibly ruled that the Moon will now be henceforth split 50-50 into two (2) equal hemispheres via a meridian at right angles to the lunar poles and which passes through the lunar equator at longitude 66.6 degrees East of Greenwich, with China gaining legal possession of all lunar lands east and Japan the remainder. The impromptu Papal announcement was hastily revised in light of several advisers informing His Holy Infallibleness that (a) since the Moon does not rotate, it possesses neither poles nor equator, and (b) the Moon has no such location known as "Greenwich"; and thus the dividing line will actually be demarcated by a couple of otherwise insignificant craters or something.
For the past 40 years or so, the Moon, along with the remainder of the universe, had previously been naïvely declared by the United Nations as, quote, "the common heritage of all mankind". This laughably ignorant decision had the immediate and unforeseen consequence of squashing forever all hopes and dreams of any meaningful American or Russian human presence on the Moon, such as self-sustained industrial colonies and/or military bases, and was one of the contributing factors to the political collapses of both the Soviet Union and the United States.
In 1990, Japan partially filled that endless void of lack of desire of ultimate conquest by undertaking a crash program in micro-miniaturization and launching Hiten I (ancient Japanese for "We pwn the moon, sukzorz"). The tiny space-probe, no larger than a postage stamp, was later kamikazed into the lunar surface and carved a tiny new crater provisionally named Hitenfaw-down (ancient Japanese for "Pearl Harbor"). This bold action, in keeping with the ancient Japanese custom of touchsies-keepsies, currently constitutes Japan's primary legal claim on the Moon.
International and internet tensions over lunar real estate claims had been building for many years now, recently culminating with China's successful launch of Chang'e 1. Immediately after attaining lunar orbit, the unmanned Chinese probe dropped a self-deploying Chinese flag[1] into the midst of the Sea of Arid Desolation (Mare Secchezza). This unprovoked Chinese provocation was partly in response to the Japanese SELENE orbiter's "accidental release" of billions of Bonsai spores into the thin lunar atmosphere, which China brazenly accused Japan of, calling it a thinly disguised attempt at terraforming.
Under the new Papal Moon Treaty, which summarily overrides the woefully inconvenient UN Outer Space Treaty, both China and Japan will now have ultimate authoritah in each of their respective lunar hemispheres, with the sole exception of not being allowed to build any military base within 47 nautical miles of an opposing such structure. They will also have the paralegal right to shoot down (with nuclear-tipped warheads) foolish attempts by any second-rate space agency, such as CSA or NASA, to land on any part of the Moon, or even enter lunar orbit; although this minor provision is unlikely to come into effect anytime soon.
- ↑ The giant Lunar Flag of China, although invisible to naked-eye observation, is just barely large enough to be spotted with cheap binoculars.
Sources[edit | edit source]
- "China and Japan prepare to square off in Lunar Struggle for Superiority" SPACE.com, January 2007