Even as our intrepid Sheep Shuttle team whizzed along in orbit above the earth, the government at home in Australia was starting to feel a bit silly about the whole business. In the cold light of day, once all the excitement of the covert Space Sheep Shuttle launch had settled down, there were lots of important people starting to feel acutely silly about the whole thing. All the politicians who had been involved in the scheme now suddenly became dead petrified the press would find out about it and feast on their misfortune. They were all suffering from what is called “extreme media anxiety” and that, for politicians, is a very bad thing.

Sheep shuttle to earth base Oz…. Come in please!!… Are you receiving me??… Are you receiving me??……
Come in please earth base Oz…………………………

No!… Go away!………

Communications with the Shuttle from Canberra became fewer and progressively more terse. Re-entry recovery dates for the Shuttle were postponed and then postponed again.

Strewth Ruth!!

What now Igor?...

…Good question, Michaelovich

When the crew started asking very direct questions about what was going on, they were firmly advised that they would be the first to know once some things had been sorted out at a high level back home.

This was for them, an unsettling thing and they redoubled their efforts to get some answers. They even tried to contact Russian authorities, but nothing did any good. When NASA control started showing interest in these distinctly odd and very angry transmissions from space, what followed was very prompt.

A quick signal was beamed to the Shuttle from ASIO headquarters in Canberra. It read as follows:

Should the Sheep Ship Space Shuttle try to make contact with anybody on Earth again, without direct permission, the shuttle’s orbit would immediately be altered from earth control and they would - sheep, boffins, kelpies, Ivans - the lot, be pitched out of orbit into space… for ever… To drift permanently in the frigid, black, dreadful, immensity of universal space”

Not a single squeak was heard from the shuttle folk after that.

Though hard to comprehend, it is nevertheless true that there are some politicians who have no trouble at all in being steadfastly in favour of something one moment and passionately against it in the next. This is what we call political ambivalence and it has a lot to do with superannuation. Political ambivalence often necessitates that MPs have to be supportive of every vote, including those against. This is because this allows them to be seen to be supporting everyone’s position on everything – all the time. This is very popular at first glance – and in politics, that is enough.

Even though the team on the Shuttle knew this as well as anybody, their apparent abandonment in space came as a severe shock to all on board. Even the sheep thought it was particularly bad form – and that’s saying something because sheep don’t ever usually think about anything at all. There seemed to be no likelihood of re-supply and no prospect of return to the homelands that they had all suddenly started to pine so acutely for. The Kelpies remained calm because it is correct that Kelpies always should, but they too were anxious in their minds and had to do their very best to not show it.

The betrayal of the Sheep Ship Space Shuttle was a great shame in many ways, not least of which was the fact that everything had been going along remarkably well up till then. All the life support systems had functioned perfectly. A small group of sheep had even been suited up and turned loose down a chute at the back of the ship. The Kelpies, also kitted up in their own fine sets of space togs, had been sent to fetch them back and done splendidly. “One small step” for Armstrong back in the 60s on the moon had been plain boring in comparison to the spectacle of that mob of space suited sheep being drafted this way and that and then being hustled back on board by those kelpies out there. Though nobody back home got to see or hear anything at all about any of it, there had in fact been many great achievements for all aboard.

…To be continued… Don’t miss the next exciting episode in PLANET OF THE KELPIES… "Space Madness"!