For the information those who were in deep sleep therapy at the time and so missed the news, the two resident Astronauts took an old space suit that had passed it's use by date, stuffed it with junk they wanted to be rid of (empty vodka bottles etc, plus a small radio) and launched it onto a slow re-entry orbit.
This endeavour greatly edified amateur Astronomers who were trying hard to observe it, and ham radio guys listening for its death chant.
Spurred on by this success, the Astronauts have decided to do an encore to coincide with the principal day of the South Pacific Star Party, namely Saturday April 1, 2006.
Though the entire Space Station was only partly completed before the temporary grounding of the Space Shuttle fleet, the Space Station's amenities block was the first module to have been totally assembled in anticipation of catering to the needs of a large multinational crew instead of, as has happened, the two or three who so far have been in residence.
However, this largesse has been compromised by the lack of the regular sanitation removal service following temporary groundings of the space shuttle fleet, with the result that two of the six zero-gravity toilet assemblies have, to put it politely, reached their design capacity.
As they are taking up valuable room and there is no Space Shuttle visit planned for the immediate future it has been decided to eject both into a degenerative orbit which should have them completing 97 circuits of the Earth before final re-entry after about a week. Forecast date is 8 April 2006 at 12:00 UTC.
True to their scientific principles, the Astronauts have rejected proposals to name these objects Uranus One and Uranus Two, but instead as they are full of it, have called them Johnny and Tony.
Both will be fitted with radios, which, from an endless circuit, will broadcast the most stirring and erudite speeches of John Howard and Tony Blair respectively. Political opponents have suggested that no better way could be devised to keep unfriendly aliens well clear of planet Earth.
Calculations suggest that the chances of the resultant debris reaching the ground are a virtual certainty, so in order to make their return to Earth a very special event, the orbits are designed to terminate over Roswell, New Mexico, which has been waiting 50 years for something like this to happen again and which has arranged a tasteful and refined welcoming festival.
There will be twenty four Elvis impersonators in blue suede space boots doing line-dancing, a grey alien look-alike competition (no makeup allowed, in the hope that a genuine grey alien might be attracted by the $10,000 first prize), five hundred chorus girls, each carrying a flag to represent the 500 Earth-like planets computed by the Roswell Astral Travel Agency to be orbiting between our Solar System and Alpha Centauri, and an open invitation and free seats to those visitors from the future who may decide to travel back in time to witness this historic event.
Ringside seats situated at Ground Zero, the E. New Mexico State Fairgrounds, corner of South East Main Street and Hobbs Street, Roswell, at only US$100 (safety helmets $10 extra) have been available for some weeks, while the organisers have announced plans to sell vitrified coprolites by the gram, handcrafted as costume jewellery.