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A bear that wandered onto NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory campus up in the hills of La Cañada Flintridge has joined Twitter so that he could apologize for scaring everyone and explain his true mission: he wanted to go to Mars.
The real-life bear showed up at JPL in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, wandering around the north side of campus where JPL manages its planetary missions including, yes, the missions to Mars. The bear sighting — only the second in the last decade — prompted the campus to go into lockdown mode until the bear wandered back up into the hills, according to Reuters.
Shortly after the bear retreated into the hills, a Twitter handle named @JPL_Bear was created. The bear's inaugural tweet said, "Sorry to scare everyone, I just want to go to Mars." (The next mission to Mars is scheduled to launch next November.) Since then, the bear has made friends with JPL_Deer, explained why he's not joining Google + and suggested the creation of a Bear and Space Museum.
Someone ought to tell JPL bear that he might have better luck getting into space if he slims down from his reported 200 lbs. — launching heavy objects takes a lot of rocket fuel (which is a lot more expensive than berries and sausages). And maybe he might have a better shot asking Iran if he can hitch a ride onto its next menagerie into space.
