The specialist chamber housing Sir David Attenborough was created by NASA for long haul space travel and would have allowed Astronauts to be put into a special suspended animation field.

The field works by essentially freezing time around the subject but the project was thrown out after a raft of science cuts during the Bush administration.

Last week the chamber went up for auction and was promptly purchased by the BBC for £574,000,000 to ‘store talent’

A BBC spokesman said;

“2016 has been a horrendous year. There’s hardly anyone left and if, God forbid, Attenborough were to die it would just irreparably crush the public spirit.”

He continued;

“Sir David Attenborough has signed onto the project along with Sir David Jason, John Cleese, Michael Palin and the beloved Bruce Forsythe.  This way we can bring them out at Christmas for decades to come.”