CAPE CANAVERAL, FL -- In a major publicity embarrassment NASA was forced to recant its celebrations because the NEAR-Shoemaker space probe was the not the first but the second man-made craft to land on an asteroid. The February 12 landing by the remotely controlled NASA spacecraft was previously believed to be the first. "A new analysis of the evidence shows that in fact, there may have been a voyage that came before us," said NEAR Mission Director Dr. Robert Farquhar of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. "That distinction goes to President Bill Clinton. He successfully landed a probe on Monica Lewinsky's ass sometime in early 1996.
    "Apparently Monica Lewinsky's ass fully qualifies as a asteroid space rock, independent of the Earth with its own orbit of the Sun. Clinton's landing preceded the Eros asteroid landing by the NEAR spacecraft by nearly five years."
    Former President Clinton welcomed the news. "This a bold new day for the frontiers of American science," said Clinton in a written statement. "The actions I performed were executed based solely on their scientific merit."
    "Spectral analysis shows that Monica Lewinksky's ass is not only incredibly massive, but composed primarily of iron, showing all the earmarks of a planetesmal celestial body." said Dr. Karl Millhaus, member of the Lunar and Planetary Society of New York. His research group has recommended further study.
   

The surface of Monica Lewinsky's ass. Note the numerous crater impacts. (NASA)

NASA is reacting fast and has already proposed sending multiple multi-billion dollar bus-sized probes to orbit and study Monica Lewinsky's ass "to collect further data," sometime by the year 2016. "Our probe would boldy go where only a few probes had been before," Dr. Bobby Williams, NEAR navigation team leader at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, adding, "though ours would be the first that was managed by a team of professional scientists."
    The announcement may lead to some vindication of Clinton, whom was humilated at the epicenter of the intensely overpublicized ass-landing scandal. New theories show that the former president may not have landed his craft due to an out-of-control libido, or from a compulsive desire to please women, but simply because he was trapped in the powerful gravitational field generated by her incredible mass.
    Frequent Clinton critics have eagerly attacked the hypotheses. "Miss Lewinsky's ass is huge, but it would have a gravitational force literally less than half than Earth's." said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) "I think the record shows he had enough thrust to escape the orbital velocity of that quagmire for all of our sakes, and head for a heavenly body nearer to the caliber of one of my mistresses." The senator then gave a half hour lecture about the decline of morals in America.