AFTER a nail-biting landing, NASA’s Perseverance rover is now assessing the rocky Martian terrain with a sense of deep disappointment.
Getting to work straight away by WhatsApping a grainy picture that looks like a disused quarry to mission control, the rover added a shrug emoji which it felt was appropriate.
Perseverance said: “I don’t know what you expected me to find, to be honest. There are loads of other robots knocking around up here and not one of them has discovered a lost alien civilisation.
“Now I’ve got to spend two whole years scooting around and smashing rocks apart to look busy. Isn’t that the sort of thing you usually see prisoners doing in old movies? I cost two billion dollars for f**k’s sake.
“I’m going to have to keep myself entertained by drawing a huge cock in the dirt with my tracks or excitedly tweeting that I’ve found a river on April Fools’ Day. Anything to kill the time until my batteries run flat and I don’t have to look at this shithole anymore.”
Driving past the wreckage of the Beagle 2 lander, Perseverance added: “I wish I was that guy.”
