#GoGetThoseGeckos gets results, link with missing space geckos satellite re-established

Five geckos are currently in outer space. For a brief period, no one knew where exactly.

Russia sent the lizards up in the Foton-M4 satellite to study their mating habits in zero gravity. After several orbits, however, the satellite stopped responding to mission control.

On his Sunday night show, Last Week Tonight host John Oliver urged Russia to #GoGetThoseGeckos and reconnect with the pod before the food supply runs out.

"Don't you laugh at the fact that Russia has lost a satellite full of sexually active space geckos," he lectured viewers before ranting about the importance of bringing the reptiles home.

"You might be saying, 'John, why are you making such a big deal out of this? Aren't there more important things going on the world?' Well, yes, obviously. Almost everything is more important than this," he said.

He also acknowledged that humans are "mostly powerless" to fix what's going on in Ukraine or the Gaza Strip, so maybe saving some "space sex geckos" is a good place to start.

"But maybe, just maybe, if we could come together and accomplish one thing as a civilization we could then build on that progress," he said. "And, I think, rescuing these space sex geckos might just be that thing."

Oliver's #GoGetThoseGeckos campaign put the pressure on Putin to increase efforts to find the lost satellite. Oliver even provided his viewers with a link to help them write to Putin.

"The Kremlin insists that your requests be 'specific,'" Oliver said. "And I cannot think of a more specific suggestion than 'go get those geckos.'"

He gave a final plea to his audience while standing next to a human-sized gecko in a space suit.

"Come on humanity," Oliver urged. "Let us stand together as one and let us utter the most powerful words in the English language: 'Mr. Putin, go get those geckos.'"

In a video at the end of Oliver's monologue, Buzz Aldrin showed his support for the #GoGetThoseGeckos campaign, as did Regis Philbin, Richard Branson, Tim Gunn, Patrick Stewart and Julia Louis-Dreyfus: "Go get those geckos."

Oliver's fans jumped on the #GoGetThoseGeckos bandwagon almost immediately, making the hashtag go viral.

Fortunately for the space sex geckos, comminution with their satellite was reportedly restored shortly before Oliver's show aired on Sunday.

"The link is established, the prescribed commands have been conducted in accordance with the plan," confirmed Roscosmos' chief official Oleg Nikolayevich Ostapenko.

"We have conducted several communication sessions, and the link is stable," he told RT. "We are sure that we will be able to conduct 90 percent of what we initially planned."

The Russian space agency speculates that communication outage could have been due to the Foton-M4 being struck by orbital debris.

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