Feed The Monkey

[Gromit]

Nasa decided they’d finally send a man up in a capsule after sending only monkeys in the earlier missions.

So the next flught they fire a man and a monkey into space. The intercom crackles, 'Monkey, fire the retros’. A little later, 'Monkey, check the solid fuel supply’. Later still, 'Monkey, check the life support systems for the man’.

The astronaut, feeling peeved, radios Nasa, 'When do I get to do something?’
Nasa replies, 'You're just there to feed the monkey’.”

__________

Fifty years later, the old NASA joke has come back to haunt Roy Hodgeson, the England Football Manager. When asked during half time on Tuesday by the defender Chris Smalling, what his job was, apparently, Hodgeson replied "Feed the Space Monkey" , referring to Andros Townsend, a black player.

Was that:
a) A good joke?
b) Racist?

[Peter Pedant]

actually I think the players have behaved rather well in this affair

[Hypognosis]

fwiw, I wouldn't have understood the space monkey reference, if it had been directed at me and this is the first time I've heard that NASA joke (thanks Gromit). Can't say whether I would have taken offence or not because I would have been thinking along the lines of Organ Grinder vs. monkey.

[Zeuhl]

There was a serious parallel to the space monkey joke in that the Gemini Programme engineers didn't see the need for the astronauts to do much at all other than be intelligent-observer passengers and potential maintenance men.

The astronauts of course came from the Test Pilot background (The Right Stuff) and they insisted on being given piloting control for the Gemini and subsequently Apollo programmes.

As it turned out, displays of piloting skill such as Armstrong's moon landing vindicated that decision.