Xtermin8 bid to put rat into sub-orbit unsuccessful but rodent 'did not suffer'

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

London, ENG: Staff at Xtermin8 Rat Poison, the UK’s 4th most popular pest control brand, have announced that their bid to put Percy, a domesticated brown rat, into sub-orbit above the Planet Earth as part of the payload of the XG9 Eurovoyager test launch has failed after the rodent’s solar powered afterburners malfunctioned and incinerated the small mammal’s capsule.

European Space Agency mission controllers at the Centre Spatial Guyanais spaceport in French Guiana announced that contact was lost with the tiny XRP1000 craft at 18:14 hrs CET on Thursday 13th January.

Peter Jamerson, Head of Advertising at Xtermin8 Rat Poison, made the following announcement:

“Percy experienced things and reached heights, both literally and figuratively, that most humans could only ever dream of. We can only wonder at what went through his tiny little rattus norvegicus mind as the XRP1000 capsule spacecraft detached from the XG9 Eurovoyager shuttle and, for those awe-inspiring few seconds before detonation, he would have seen the curvature of the earth below and the hazy bending mists of our planet’s atmosphere above from his miniature windscreen. It is a view we are certain Percy would have witnessed as his head had been anaesthetised and stapled into position prior to launch.

“We can take comfort from the fact that this brave rat would not have suffered, as both computer modelling and the live video stream suggest he would have been vaporised instantaneously. The irony will not be lost on our thousands of perfectly satisfied customers that his agony was significantly quicker than those of his kinfolk who meet a far more mundane end thanks to the wide array of Xtermin8 Rat Poison pest control products.”