The Mole and a Rocket, 1965
Czechoslovakia became the 3rd country in the world - after the Soviet Union and the U.S. - that has sent its citizen to the outer space.
Mr Vladimír Remek joined the crew with Mr Alexei Gubarev of Russia in the late 1970s. Clearly, our politically correct, half-Czech, half-Slovak comrade was chosen because of the unusually authentic friendship between the Soviets and (some of) the Czechoslovaks and because of our relative technological prowess (recall also the Czechoslovak pilots who fought in Britain during the war).
Mr Remek is currently a member of the European Parliament, representing the Unreformed Marxist Leninist Stalinist Murderous Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia. He is clearly among those who give the party a better name than what it deserves.
Fourty years ago, Neil Armstrong played the New World Symphony by Mr Antonín Dvořák (Czech) on his trip to the Moon, too.
However, a brand new era for the Czech astronauts recently started when Andrew Feustel, the last person who was repairing the Hubble Space Telescope during the service mission and who has Czech roots, began to flood the outer space with the Czech culture. He filled the Universe with the Cosmic Songs by the 19th century Czech poet Jan Neruda, before he (Feustel) visited my hometown of Pilsen.
However, as the Wall Street Journal informs, the little Czech mole, a cartoon celebrity in the socialist bloc (see the video above for an episode - you don't need to speak any Czech), has even become a NASA astronaut.
Space Shuttle Stowaway Is a Commie MoleKrtek [mole, pronounce "cur-tack"] plush toys had to be redesigned to meet the NASA criteria for passive astronauts. But I am sure that Krteček [little mole, pronounce "curteh-czech"] is ready for his mission which may include some work on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) designed to study cosmic rays. The author of the locally renowned Czech cartoon character, Mr Zdeněk Miller, is 90 years old. Feustel hopes that the mole and its peaceful values may find some fans in America.
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The mole is also a big friend of the fossil fuels - which may be found politically incorrect by some people but very appropriate by others - as showed in the cute episode The Mole and the King Coal. See about 40 other episodes of the Little Mole on YouTube. For example, the 1957 episode How the Mole Got His Trousers won the Silver Lion in Venice.
The cartoons are aimed at healthy children under 5 years old and the global warming alarmists under 65 years old.
Hat tip: John F. Hultquist
