Buyers with an untrained-eye may think this auction is for a real piece of space history, but if you look really, really closely - you may notice it is in fact for a renault espace.......But what an eSpace.
Bought on ebay last month for the earthly sum of 271 British pounds sterling (
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0261363038), this loser-cruiser has been somewhat adjusted to take the shAtlantis crew to Le Mans for this year's 24 hour race.
The objective of this mission was to replace the toilet on the space station while the race occured - the time limit was 24 hours (which is 1 Earth day)
Training for this expedition included 7 months intensive swimming-baths activity (rubber brick and pyjamas are not included in this auction) and GNVQ plumbing stage 2.
The load bay was adapted to take 6 heroes in comfort (with a 40L fridge full of cold beers) on a trip they'll never forget, which was a huge success.
The main fuselage has been pain-stakingly crafted from the latest in space-age materials - Viynl, plastic, planks, chipboard and polystyrene. In summary, this has been a 'function over form' exercise.
Legend has it, NASA needed 36000 hand made tiles on the nose-cone to prevent re-entry bedlum, but some swift thinking from the Brits managed to whittle the NAFA-craft down to just 12 tiles. The reason for this is simple - The wilting temperature of our play-skool tiles is 50 degrees celsius, which is 11.5 degrees higher than Britain's highest recorded temperature! (Please take care not to land in France - because it smells!)
The fuel-boosters have been conveniently down-sized from NASA's knock-up, which has improved vehicle entry no-end, although it's worth noting that vehicle disembarkation can only be made thorugh the O/S rear door.
The tail-plane sports the NAFA logo and a pictorial represantation of a tail rudder. Please note, this will not actually steer the craft other than into the direction of your nearest PC fun-police
On the derrier of the craft there are 3 mock-engines. Other than hinder rear visability, these are good for nowt.
Rigorous weight-saving targets have been of paramount importance on this craft. A mere 60% of the original power-house remains, while the other 40% joins all the other junk circling this planet.
This ship has covered 148000 Earth miles and is currently certified to meet local legislation on Earth until July 2008, where as on Mars it will run forever! (Diesel not provided)
