With that kind of atittude, you’ll never be a billionaire to start with.
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And again, I’m not saying that space exploration isn’t important, or that people who already give PP infinite amounts more than I do shouldn’t blow money on stupid things like yachts, but to literally loop around the back of the moon? That’s not exploration by any stretch, you’re just doing it to brag. Fund five artists to go up in Mir instead, that’s money better spent.
And yes, I know I’m making up the hundred million number, but it’s plausible based on 20 million for a Mir shot a few years back.
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It’s certainly too late now. Even my kids are already behind at this rate.
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If they’re going to do it anyway, we can at least hope for the Edgar Mitchell effect.
If that works, send 'em all!
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And yeah, I know I’m looking for positives. I can hope.
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Yeah, it’s not exploration, but isn’t necessarily ego, either, it could also be for the experience. The launch, the power, the weightlessness, the view, the perspective, reentry … that’s a pretty great way to pass a long weekend.
But yeah, mostly ego and bragging rights.
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I recall that NASA’s mission statement for the Moon landings included a statement about returning the astronauts safely back to Earth. Well, I’ve just read the SpaceX and Gizmodo announcement and report, and they don’t seem to include anything about a ‘safe’ return.
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Is that the part where we start believing in UFOs and doing ESP experiments that we use any false positives we can to up the numbers?
Now, if there’s an option to not give that politician a space suit I can get on board…
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“Look at that, you son of a bitch.”
Speaking for myself, I’d then cut off the politician’s oxygen supply. (It’s not as if a politician would likely have undergone some transformative revelation and changed the world.)
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Let me know when they want people to land on the Moon.
I’d never pass the medical.
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Zounds. Looks like you and I are on the same asphyxiation wavelength.
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You might also suggest that they review and update their wills.
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Recall 77 year old John Glenn’s rather expensive junket on the Space Shuttle. He survived. So could you.
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I also recall he was in remarkable shape for his age, to the extent that “let’s study the effects of microgravity on the elderly” was basically an excuse for putting on the publicity stunt since he was so atypical of elderly people.
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I can think of one rich elderly guy in less good shape I’d be prepared to send up as a science experiment.
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No good. They don’t make spacesuit gloves in child sizes.
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Them’s the risks - if our fine benevolent billionaires want to perform that experiment for the public good despite that possibility, well…
You do know mir isn’t up there anymore right?
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Being in the industry (and hearing way back from the good folks at Glenn Research Center who hated having their facility name changed from Lewis to Glenn), Glenn is the one who pushed for the expensive joy ride and used his influence to get it in spite of the queue in the astronaut corps waiting and training for years to get a mission. Less publicity stunt (which only NASA by any stretch of the imagination could have benefited from) than Glenn’s own interests.
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I’d like them to be able to have that kind of revelation, but then, I’m enough of a Clarkian to remember https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_and_the_Senator (spoilers therein, I guess). Still that’s my inner optimist speaking, not my inner realist.
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