Ersatz

The Ersatz-9 space probe went kablooie when the gas station attendant ignored company policy to snuff out his smoke.

Ersatz was a family of space probes:

• ERSATZ-1 is the NASA environmentalism satellite that measures whether earth is suffering from a warming year (El Niño) requiring emergency intrusive government action, or from a cooling year (La Niña) requiring the same.
• Ersatz II was a rocket that U.S. President Barack Obama took after getting "shellacked" in the 2014 elections. Obama landed on the surface of a comet and negotiated a new global warming treaty with alien life forms. The aliens had observed that the climate on their tiny world changed every time it approached the sun, which was surely caused by SUVs and barbecuing with Sterno.
• Ersatz-9 (pictured) was a device of Space Communications, Ltd. that blew up in 2016 when attached to a rocket of private rocketeering company SpaceX. As implied by its name, SpaceX has only one more shot, and is readying Ersatz-10 for a "♪♪ three-hour tour ♪♪" under the command of Capt. Gilligan.

This is a disambiguation page. It could refer to anything.