Upper East Side Astronauts Stuck Behind Crosstown Bus
In a stunning conclusion to humanity’s greatest adventure, the billionaire space race officially ended this week when three competing rockets got stuck in midtown Manhattan traffic during rush hour. Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson, each piloting their own spacecraft, found themselves hovering awkwardly above Fifth Avenue at 4:47 PM on a Tuesday, unable to proceed due to what NASA officials are calling “unprecedented gridlock conditions in the thermosphere directly above Penn Station.”
“We had achieved orbital velocity, we’d broken through the atmosphere, we were ready to claim our rightful place among the stars,” explained Bezos from his Blue Origin capsule, which has been circling the Chrysler Building for three days. “Then we hit the FDR approach vector and everything just… stopped. There’s apparently some kind of presidential motorcade, a water main break, and someone’s moving a couch into a fifth-floor walkup on 34th Street.”
Musk’s SpaceX Dragon capsule attempted an alternative route through the Queens-Midtown Tunnel but was informed by Port Authority officials that the $14 toll applies to spacecraft as well, and they don’t accept Dogecoin. “This is exactly the kind of bureaucratic overreach that’s killing innovation,” Musk tweeted from low Earth orbit, before his signal dropped because he forgot to pay his Verizon bill.
Virgin Galactic’s Branson took a more philosophical approach, treating his stranded spacecraft like an exclusive pop-up restaurant in Tribeca. “We’re calling it ‘Dining in the Stratosphere,'” he announced, serving $400 tasting menus to hedge fund managers who chartered helicopters to reach his immobilized vessel. The New York Times gave it two stars, noting that “while the views are spectacular, the service is slow and you can’t actually leave.”
Meanwhile, actual New Yorkers have barely noticed the celestial traffic jam. “Yeah, I saw some rich guys stuck in their space cars up there,” said Brooklyn resident Maria Torres, who was trying to get to a 6 PM yoga class in Williamsburg that she was already 45 minutes late for. “Welcome to the club, buddy. I’ve been on this subway platform since February.”
The FAA has issued a statement declaring that all three billionaires must obtain proper parking permits before attempting re-entry, and that overnight space parking is prohibited on Manhattan’s west side during street cleaning hours. When informed that this might strand them in orbit indefinitely, an FAA spokesperson shrugged and said, “Should’ve taken the express.”
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/billionaire-space-race/
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/billionaire-space-race/.
By: Annika Steinmann.
