BE DOPE NEWS (BDN) The BeOS Mars Orbiter Wireless Internet Appliance Device, an unmanned $125 million spacecraft, intended to be the first interplanetary weather station, went missing Thursday and NASA scientists said they feared it had been destroyed by Bill Gates. Be had planned to use the spacecraft to launch its "Be Everywhere" advertising campaign.

"Only BeOS allowed us to gather, analyze and render martian weather data in realtime for live streaming to the Internet," said NASA project manager Richard Cook.

According to NASA scientists, the spacecraft was thrown off course while avoiding a Microsoft Death Laser. While unable to provide technical proof, Cook points to an email sent by Gates after NASA chose BeOS over Windows CE for the project.

"The Gates email said in part 'Let's see how your choice stands up to my wrath' and other comments along those lines," explained Cook. "Unfortunately the Death Laser caught us off guard since it usually targets companies on Earth who annoy Microsoft."

Cook said that NASA scientists had expected that the orbiter would approach Mars at an altitude of between 87 and 93 miles when it fact it came in at 37 miles above the surface of the planet, due to the earlier evasive action. He said the minimum survival altitude was 53 miles.

The loss of the spacecraft forces the cancellation of future missions planned to study the effects of running the Nitozac@Home client from the surface of Mars, and the effects of martian gravity on falling monitors.

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