Monday, 3/8

 I wonder what the odds are?

I don't know if you've heard, but a Japanese billionaire is looking for seven people to join him on a flight around the moon & back. He's already paid for the flight through Space X, and he's giving people the chance to sign up for free and join him. It caught my attention, for reasons that would be obvious to anyone who's ever read these things. It caught me attention and should Space X ever get their Starship rocket to actually, you know, not blow up when it lands the flight should be the first by humans to the moon since 1972, where they will shoot past the moon, loop around, and then (hopefully) make it back to Earth.

Uhm...can I get a couple of hundred thousand entries for this?

8-)

I can't even imagine how much this billionaire is paying to make the trip, and if I'm totally honest, part of me wonders if the money wouldn't be better spent feeding people or providing safe housing for millions of refugees who currently have no home. But if you have the money and you have the desire to make the trip, I can certainly see why you'd want to go. Only (I think) 26 people have ever left Earth orbit to head to the moon, and to be among the first to do it for a vacation would just be incredible. I mean, sure, they'll be launched on the rocket that has an unfortunate tendency (at least thus far) to end up in a ball of flames, but you'll be going to the moon.

That outweighs the risks, right?

According to the story, the company says the billionaire is is fully aware of the risks, which I would hope is the case. Going to the moon isn't like hopping onto a plane and heading to, say, Europe. Nope; at least in a plane, if you have a problem you can usually land somewhere and take care of whatever the situation is. But when you're going to the moon, you're going to the moon. You don't have any place to land if you have a problem. And even when you get back to Earth there's still that little problem of not burning up in Earth's atmosphere and landing safely in the ocean.

But other than that it's not too risky.

Now, that being said, would I go if given the chance? You bet I would. I know how risky space travel can be. But I also know that everything is done to make sure that those risks are minimized. I have to admit, the fact that the booster they want to use hasn't been fully tested yet, which could keep pushing the flight later and later into the future, but if they ever get it worked out, I could see the allure of heading to the moon, especially as the first private citizens to do so. After all, the history books awake.

Here's my prediction--I don't think they'll fly any time in the near future, but I do think they will eventually make it. And I do think that this will open a whole new era in spaceflight, at least for those who can afford it. But it's a start. One day—maybe too late for my dream of making it into space, but one day-- flying into space will be as common as hopping onto a jet and flying to Europe. After all, think how exotic that concept was a century ago, and now people don't even give it a second thought.

And at the very least, we can all say we were around when space became a place for you to go on vacation.

(jim@wmqt.com), still volunteering, if anyone asks!