Faced with the prospect of defaulting on it’s debts and having rejected Germany’s suggestion that it should sell off a few islands, Greece has decided to earn revenue from it’s stock of Gods and myths by copywriting them. The idea has caused panic throughout NASA and the International Astronomical Union (IAU) who rely on using the extensive back catalogue of Greek legends to name projects and planets.
Contingency plans are already being made to rename the planets in the Sol system so as to avoid copyright infringement issues. The cheapest option would be to rename them with regular Christian names such as George and Brian, but negotiations are underway with Lucas Films to rename them after characters from Star Wars for a one off fee, under which Jupiter could be renamed ‘Jaba’ and Mars ‘Boba Fett’. Other options under investigation include characters from Lord of the Rings, The Simpsons, or Family Guy, which could controversially see Uranus renamed as ‘Quagmire’ and Pluto as ‘Meg’.
NASA has started a consultation process to rename the Apollo moon programme, but that is expected to take at least five years and cost a billion dollars and may well end in failure with Congress stepping in to rename it ‘Kennedy’ when any school child could have told them that in the first place.
Back on Earth, Pandora’s Box may have to be renamed “The ‘safe place’ Mummy puts things, but then can never remember where she put it”.
(I'm sure someone out there with an education in classics can improve on this)
