It’s called space tourism. For a mere 250 to 500 thousand you can have a 10 min ride up on a suborbital flight into space and hopefully safely back down again. That is a minimum of 25,000 a min, or 417 a second. The amount of time actually spent in space is four minutes tops.
The most famous of this new breed of space explorers has to be William Shatner, aka Captain James Tiberius Kerk. You may also remember him has the worse actor ever to appear in non-pornographic movies. He said that going to space was a life changing event. So is menopause and it last longer.
The latest in these space adventures occurred just a few days ago when Blue Origin lifted off six of these would be “astronauts” from it site in West Texas which is right near the spot where the Lord gave the earth an enema.
Profiles of these six is enlightening. First is Emily Calandrelli who goes by the moniker “the space gal”. She claims that she studied aerospace engineering for nearly ten years which I take to mean she never graduated or worked in the field. She says she starred on a national science TV show. Yep, that qualifies her to be an astronaut… not. Her dream is to show girls that they can reach for the stars. Bull Shit! She was on a self-aggrandizing ego trip. If she was really interested in helping girls reach for the stars, she could have set up a college fund aimed at getting more women into aerospace engineering. Maybe they might even be successful in the field.
Others on this flight included a married couple who were on their second Blue Origin flight, an investment CEO, a private pilot, an entrepreneur, and a man who was sponsored by a streaming shopping channel. Pretty much all rich folks with more money than they know what to do with and a desire to feed their egos. Or as Calandrelli put it: “We got to weightlessness, I immediately turned upside down and looked at the planet and then there was so much blackness. There was so much space. I didn’t expect to see so much space, and I kept saying That’s our planet! That’s our planet! It was the same feeling I got when my kids were born, and I was like, ‘That’s my baby! That’s my baby!’ I had that same feeling where I’m seeing it for the first time, and it was beautiful.”
Really Emily? What did you expect to see for your $250,000? It is not like you were the first to see it. You could have watched a video, bought a 3D headset, or looked at a globe while stoned and had pretty much the same experience. Ok, you were weightless. But that same sensation could have been achieved by smoking some really good stuff, or so I’ve been told.
So why do this exorbitantly expensive, extremely short and potentially lethal thing? Yes lethal. As of 2023, 673 people have been to space, 19 have not survived the trip. Thats 2.8 percent. And the rocket these guys went up in is not only experimental but also reusable. Ever heard of stress fractures. Google the British Airways Comet. This was the first commercial passenger jet. It was an engineering marvel of its day until it crashed, twice. Turns out that as the aircraft flew to high altitudes then back to the ground, the pressurizing and depressurizing placed stress on the hull resulting in micro fracturing which after repeated use led to airframe failure. In simpler terms it exploded like a bomb. Correct me if I am wrong, the Comet flew at 500 mph at 30,000 feet and was subjected to a little over 1 g acceleration and maybe 100 degrees Fahrenheit temperature fluxes. The Blue Origin goes from earth to 67 miles up where there is no air pressure, is under multiple g stress, and the most extreme temperature fluxes possible. Do you think they x-ray the whole fucking thing before they send it up again? This is a for profit company by the way.
Once again why do this expensive and really stupid thing. The only answer is it’s for inflating the ego of basically childish individuals who do not value their own worth. Why risk your life to go into space, visit the Titanic or climb Mt. Everest? They are not doing it to “show girls that they can reach for the stars”. It is done so that they can brag to their “friends” at a gala for some artsy cause while they sip their shaken but not stirred martinis. And finally, Emily, the earth is beautiful but it’s nothing like your baby. It is a planet that is rife with problems that need to be solved so that your baby and subsequent babies will have a life that has the potential to be as good as yours has obviously been. I am happy that your trip to the vastness of space changed your life. Sadly, this change in you was not for the better.