A whale in space is very absurd because you wouldn't see or hear about a whale that was in space. Absurd is just like Improbable and impossibility because they all mean its most likely that its no going to happen. If you think about it a whale in space is probably the most absurd thing you've heard of because of how strange it is. What happened in the story was a whale had randomly appeared in space while they were running from guided missiles that got shot at them by a planet.

Another absurd thing that happened in the book was when Arthur and Ford got picked up in space from the heart of gold spaceship. When they got picked up their were a lot of absurd things happening like party balloons flying out and paper hats like why would they be inside of a ship? Some other absurd things that happened is a team of humans fell out the ship and died and also the chance of being picked up in space which is extremely lucky it is, two to the power of two hundred and seventy-six thousand seven hundred and nine to one against. That is a very low chance of being picked up in space that is why its so absurd.