Gather round best beloved (as Kipling would say) and I will tell you a story that will cheer you up no end. This story is about an extreme Kelpie adventure that occurred in the late 20th century. It involved two Kelpies who were my great, great, great grandparents and it all started with a secret CSIRO space research project called Space-Sheep. I happen to know all about it only because the Kelpies involved were close relatives of mine.

In the beginning, Project Space-Sheep was promoted by its advocates as a farsighted kind of rural marketing concept. No one with a brain took the idea seriously at all, but strangely enough there were still some very seniour politicians in Canberra who thought it was an absolutely brilliant idea. These eminent folk were convinced that at some time in the future, livestock might need to be transported to other planets through outer space. They argued that some serious space livestock research was long overdue and should be undertaken as soon as possible!

Once the concept got some air play, something like panic started to set in. Suddenly there was a terrible dread in the national capital that the Argentinians or Americans or some such similarly less worthy nation would get wind of this Australian innovation and get the jump on us. In all fairness, it has to be said that very little was known at that time about shipping mobs of sheep through space. The idea of Australia knowing more about this subject than anyone else in the world proved impossible for some of Australia’s leading scientists to resist.

Early in the space race back in the 60s, dear reader, as I’m sure you will recall, that the Russians had a tendency to bung small animals like hampsters, dogs and monkeys into orbit for short trips. Animals were used in those times because the chances of getting back were about zero and the proper cosmonauts flatly refused to do it. On those occasions, the test animal went for relatively short trips and only one at a time. It was nothing compared to what was being contemplated with Project “Space Sheep” in Australia.

There were a lot of questions that needed answers. How could the continuous stream of pelletised dung be managed for weeks and months on end in those weightless confines of a space craft? What would happen if a cranky old merino ram were to really aggressively bunt into other sheep and send it pelting about and bouncing off instrument panels and such? How well would the sheep browse on Lucerne hay that was just drifting all about in the air? What about the methane? Etc etc. So many questions. Nobody had any answers – none at all!

Suddenly Project “Space Sheep” got the big green light and went into top gear. An astrobiotech plan was quickly developed. The Federal Government swung right behind the scheme and got a very good deal on a second hand Russian space shuttle craft complete with crew of three trained astronauts. The whole outfit was covertly shipped into Oz by ASIO operatives and then under cover of darkness set up for launch at Woomera, deep in the very back of the back blocks of South Australia and not a single soul except for some roos, a handful of rabbits and the odd emu knew anything about it. A small flock of 30 Merinos were mustered in and loaded up along with a handful of CSIRO research boffins who had to be blindfolded first before being flown in from Canberra on the prime minister’s plane.

The project supervisors decided that some working dogs should be included and might even be needed to keep the merinos under control. So that’s how it came to pass that Kelpie ancestors got to become part of the Sheep Ship Space Show. Those Kelpies were last to load  of course because it is a matter of principle that kelpies only get in the back after everything else has been sorted and no exception could be made just on account of this being a space shuttle.

The launch, in the event, was an entire success and before long the mission craft settled into a peaceful orbit around the world about 1,000 kilometers out. No worries. … But, dearly beloved, you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men. Things started to unravel on the sheep shuttle after about ten weeks of orbiting the earth and it was ugly!

…To be continued… Don’t miss the next (soon to be released) exciting episode of “Planet of the Kelpies”!