It’s not fair. I have wanted to be a rocket pilot since I was old enough to drink Tang and now the only thing between me and my ride on a spaceship is the size of my bank account.
When I was growing up one of those memories that seems indelible is standing in the classroom listening to the scratchy distorted PA speaker on the wall playing the radio account of the brave flight into space by American Astronaut John Glenn.
Well now, very soon, in fact within two years from now, rich guys and gals will be going where no man has gone before. Well, OK a few men and women have gone there but hardly enough to ruin the phrase. A bunch of different companies, one of them owned by billionaire nutcase Richard Branson, are going into the business of space tours.
Space tours!
In my wildest dreams of Buck Rogers and Star Trek I never ever thought that all you would need to take a ride on a spaceship would be a fat checkbook. But it seems to be the truth.
For an estimated six figure price tag ordinary humans like you and me will be blasting off from a spaceport in the United Arab Nation. Or maybe in Mexico. Or they might build one somewhere here in the good Ole USA.
A spaceport?
Hang on George Jetson. So let’s get this into perspective. You can take the same trip that John Glenn took in the old Friendship Seven if you can pony up $100,000 smackers. I don’t know if you saw the movie “The Right Stuff†or not but it was the story of the original astronauts and the sacrifices they made. Those guys had to go through a bunch of crap to ride on the tip of that Atlas 6 rocket. And now if I sell everything I own and rob a bank or two I could have a half hour ride too.
Where do I sign up? Oh and by the way could you spare a few thousand? I’ll pay you back right after splashdown.
