Pisces IV, Ready for Launch

What with all the talk in recent years of the privatizing of space, it was only a matter of time before this subocean spacecraft was developed.

Conceived by Brad Cousteau, great-grandnephew of the famous undersea explorer, the Pisces IV is unique, as it launches from the deep seafloor of the Mariana Trench. There it can draw on the vast quantities of sulfides seeping from ‘smokers’ in the earth’s crust as fuel. It’s laminated carbon fiber/platinum/niobium hull also benefits from a thin veneer of plankton and tube-worm mucus, which makes the ship super-slippery — just like that flopping walleye you tried to retrieve from the bowels of your father-in-law’s boat last summer — and therefore able to slither through water and air on its way to the cosmic vacuum.

(One minor drawback: piscenauts require triple-recirculating-ionizing-charcoal airpacks to overcome the supremely fishy stench of their craft.)