Illegal Immigrants Discovered Aboard International Space Station

CWT-Houston. Cats With Thumbs Texas Bureau has learned from a confidential source at the NASA Johnson Space Center that five illegal immigrants were discovered aboard the United States Space Shuttle Discovery soon after it docked with the International Space Station on October 25, 2007. The three Ukrainian and two Romanian nationals were found inside a Shuttle Discovery cargo pod used to transport supplies from the earth to the space station. All five stowaways had obtained and were wearing NASA standard issue pressure suits; CWT's inside source reported all five were in "good health and jolly spirits" when they were escorted from their hideaway.

According to internal documents obtained by CWT from NASA, all five men were employed without work authorization or visas by a company under contract with the NASA Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida to maintain the grounds and landscaping near the shuttle launch gantry. A CWT contact inside NASA personnel revealed, " the landscaping company had been under investigation and all of the 'Space Station immigrants' had learned they would soon be detained and deported. I guess they figured 'what the hell.' I mean, who's going to go get them now?"

CWT obtained transcripts of satellite communications between the International Space Station and NASA Mission Control that reveal the five have been working aboard the space station since October 27th, "cleaning, doing the laundry, and taking out the trash" with no Space Station work permits - the transcripts also indicate they are being paid "substantially less" than the United States minimum hourly wage. The documents also detail a plan agreed upon by NASA, the European Space Agency, Japan, Canada, and Russia to "keep the whole thing quiet and ship them back to earth when we go back up for Shuttle Mission STS-122 in February."

When confronted with details of the communications, a senior NASA official would only speak to Cats With Thumbs off the record, on the condition his identity not be disclosed. "This is an unprecedented situation - the five 'visitors' asked for work the minute we popped the cork on the cargo pod and found them in there playing dominoes on a solar panel," the visibly disgruntled manager reported; "I mean, we're pretty short handed up there and there's a lot of tidying up that needs to be done on a daily basis - we've been under a lot of pressure from Congress to cut costs and those guys are hard little workers; they get right to it and never complain. What do you think, I'm gonna ask an astronaut with a doctorate to clean the toilet or make coffee?"

The immigration status of the five men is not known - they were all in violation of United States Homeland Security laws while working as undocumented aliens on earth, but there are apparently no provisions for deportation or extradition from outer space in the charter of the International Space Station. Although the American section of the ISS is considered United States territory, the Station is jointly administered by an international consortium - it is unclear if the "flying five," as they have been dubbed by the ISS crew, can be forced to return to earth against their will. The communications documents obtained by CWT suggest the Space Station astronauts would be happy for them to stay: " Leave'm here," one unidentified crew member told NASA mission control, " they keep out of the way and do what we tell them to. Once they have the dinner scraps cleaned up, they go back to their cargo pod to play chess and read poetry. We don't see'em unless we need'em"

One of the Ukrainian "space refugees" spoke with NASA after a week on board the ISS: "It's good, it's just fine up here. I have a computer so I can get Western Union online and send money home. The work is not too hard and it's nice and quiet. I don't like the Russian much, though."

The Department of Homeland Security refused official comment when contacted by Cats With Thumbs concerning the fate of the newest illegal immigrants. A U.S. State Department Consular official told CWT off the record, "It's an election year; ask Hillary and Rudy what they want to do with them. They can spin around in space washing dishes forever as far as I'm concerned."