X-Prize Contender SpaceShipOne Grounded As Al-Qaeda Threaten To Blow Up Moon

15th June 2004

The US Government has withdrawn the flight license granted to the privately owned X Prize Contender SpaceShipOne and its mother ship White Knight following fears Al Qaeda may hijack the craft in an attempt to carry out their latest threat – to blow up the Moon.

People had initially dismissed Al-Qaeda’s threat as fanciful; however when SpaceShipOne touched the borders of space earlier today it became clear the idea was not as far fetched as previously thought.

“We received intelligence that Al-Qaeda was intending to blow up the moon earlier this year,” CIA spokesperson Chuck Hankman announced in a press release, “Of course, we thought this was just an idle threat but this is now the second time we have had cause to doubt that claim.

“The first time was earlier this month when the moon turned red without warning – we thought they’d succeeded and it was going to disintegrate, however it turned out that was just a lunar eclipse.

“However this morning a privately owned space craft nearly made it into space; this is a disturbing development – if Al-Qaeda managed to get their hands on this craft it is not inconceivable they could use it to fly into the Moon to fulfil their threat. We have therefore decided to take action and revoke the flight licenses granted to SpaceShipOne and its mothership White Knight.”

Scaled Composites, the company responsible for creating the space ship, have claimed their spaceship has not yet made it into orbit and would certainly not be able to travel the hundreds of thousands of kilometres to the Moon. They added that even if it could it would only make a small crater if terrorists attempted to crash it into Moon.

The CIA refused to stand down, saying they could not take the risk. They stated the Moon was too valuable to risk losing explaining “it had a whole load of old NASA junk on it we might want to put in Museums in 500 years.”

Coldplay fans supported the CIA’s decision after Chris Martin had claimed ‘he was 900 miles over the Moon’ following the birth of his baby daughter.