Amidst rising studio costs and soaring public awareness of CGI, NASA announced an end to their fake film unit this week.
"We're not sure we can carry this subterfuge any further", claimed Director of Moon Journeys, Chuck Manly. "We're amazed we've managed to keep it going this long". When the first film about a group of men flying into space was picked up by the news networks, NASA thought it was a bit of fun. The publicity was excellent, so they decided to carry on making spoof 'documentaries' about journeys into space. "It was easy back then: black and white TV, low resolution film and higher rates of casual daytime drinking made it easier to pull the wool over the publics' eyes."
"People were lapping it up, they even bought the idea of 'landing on the moon'", said Chuck. "We were pushing it a bit when we added different species such as 'Vulcans', but we just claimed it was sci-fi, and no damage was done." But now, modern high-definition television has made it too costly to produce credible footage of cosmic missions. "They'll easily spot the wires", said Chuck, sadly.
NASA are hoping that they can pitch for another space program in the future, possibly in 3D, but competition is tough. "The public are pretty easily bored these days, producers are even having to add made-up creatures into wildlife documentaries. We went too far with the Hubble telescope thing, really: it's going to be tough to top that".
Even so, NASA remains optimistic. "We're planning a meteor collision in 2017, which will be diverted in a barely believable way by three hybrid, battery-powered spaceships", said Chuck. "It would be more credible with proper rockets, but this 'global warming' story has been really good for us, and we're keen to keep up the ruse".