No! It's not the first time ..........

[Snoopy]

................. that a clown has gone into space.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8281253.stm

Space tourist and circus entrepreneur Guy Laliberte has begun his journey to orbit.
The Canadian billionaire was aboard the Soyuz craft which blasted off to the International Space Station (ISS)

It is perhaps the first time someone who has made millions being a professional circus performer has gone in to space but the first clown? I think not.

Becoming an astronaut is hard ? a lot harder than Danny Olivas ever thought it would be. But hard in a good way.
?It?s hard in the way like making your favorite cake,? Olivas said. ?It takes a long time, you have the ingredients all over the place and you have to clean up afterwards. But the reward justifies all the effort.?.................
?This sounds really strange, but I?ve always thought to myself, ?I?m good with my hands, I can fix things,?? Olivas said. ??I?m mechanically inclined, and maybe I?ll never be as smart as astronauts but they?re always going to need someone to fix stuff. I could be one of those guys who fix things for the astronauts.??

"I can fix stuff" qualifies you does it?  

Disguised in a dark wig, glasses and a trench coat, US space shuttle astronaut Lisa Nowak drove 12 hours wearing nappies so she would not need to stop, then waited in hiding for a woman she considered a rival for another astronaut?s affections and tried to kidnap her, police in Orlando say.
Nowak, 43, was arrested on charges including battery and attempted kidnapping, an Orlando police affidavit said.
She told police she drove from Houston to the Orlando International Airport to confront Colleen Shipman, whom Nowak considered a rival for the attentions of fellow astronaut Bill Oefelein, the affidavit said.
Nowak, a married flight engineer with three children, was awaiting her next flight assignment after travelling aboard the shuttle Discovery in July 2006.

How very rational ~ and she passed the psychology tests?  

Dr. Edgar Mitchell is a renowned American astronaut--and one of the few people who've had the chance to walk on the moon. Now, at age 77, he's decided to add world-class bean-spiller to his resume as well.
In a recent interview, Dr. Mitchell claimed that extraterrestrials have made several trips to our planet. And each time they pay us a visit, the government simply covers it up.
But WHY? According to Mitchell, though the aliens boast technology far superior to ours, they pose no threat to humankind. Perhaps officials are worried that the extraterrestrials' creepy looks (small bodies and over-sized eyes) would scare the general public.
Whatever the reason, their secret is OUT. According to Mitchell:
"I happen to have been privileged enough to be in on the fact that we've been visited on this planet and the UFO phenomena is real. It's been well covered up by all our governments for the last 60 years or so, but slowly it's leaked out and some of us have been privileged to have been briefed on some of it.
"I've been in military and intelligence circles, who know that beneath the surface of what has been public knowledge, yes - we have been visited. Reading the papers recently, it's been happening quite a bit."

Oh Like people in Intelligence talk about the "secrets" they uncovered  

Belleville's own astronaut was the center of attention Thursday at the St. Louis Science Center's James S. McDonnell Planetarium.
Sandra Magnus, a Belleville native, spoke to a crowd of about 200 about her 4 1/2 -month stint on the International Space Station as part of Expedition 18.
"I've only been back on the planet for about five months," said the flight engineer..................
"At night, astronauts enjoyed watching thunderstorms and lightning strikes."
She also liked Sundays when she performed what she called "stupid astronaut tricks." When her schedule allowed, she would "swim" through the zero-gravity space station and perform multiple somersaults.

How interesting

One of NASA's most famous astronauts, Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, has resigned from the space agency. She achieved arguably the highest profile of any currently-serving astronaut* when she dropped her tools into an independent orbit about the Earth during a spacewalk last November.
Stefanyshyn-Piper became a mission-specialist astronaut in 1998, having previously served as a diving and salvage officer in the US Navy. She holds an advanced degree in mechanical engineering from MIT.
After qualifying as an astronaut Stefanyshyn-Piper flew as space shuttle crew twice, in 2006 and 2008. It was during the latter trip, mission STS-126 aboard the shuttle Endeavour to the International Space Station (ISS), that her famous mishap occurred. While Stefanyshyn-Piper was trying to clean up grease inadvertently spurted from her grease gun, her $100,000 toolbag drifted out of her reach and sailed off into space.

Should have stuck to making the coffee  

As a Navy test pilot and an astronaut, Alan Bean had plenty of the Right Stuff. But sometimes he sounds as if he wishes he had a little more of the Left Stuff. "A lot of things I think about come from the right side of my brain. And for most of the other guys, most of the things they think about come from the left side," the 75-year-old artist and one-time moonwalker told me. "And it got me in trouble at NASA at first."

No shit Mr Bean?  

[Uncle Mort]

Once astronauts were lauded as heroes, blasting off into the great unknown, exploring the final frontier, one small step... etc. etc. Now they are just glorified truck drivers and mechanics, taking supplies up to space station, adding new modules and doing running repairs.

And it turns out, to no great surprise, that they are just like the rest of us. 
 

[Snoopy]

Dan Dare wasn't like that.

[Darwins Selection]

Dan Dare wasn't like that.

The Mekon was