Travel Show Weblog #27: Important! Read this before considering breast augmentation
Ireland On-Line reports that 157 people, at around $200,000 each, have already signed up for Virgin Galactic space flights starting in 2008.
However, people who will not be able to become touronauts include those with heart problems and those with breast implants.
The heart condition I can understand. The breat implant rule, Im only guessing, could be for any of the following reasons:
- Silicon goes funny in zero gravity.
- The seat belts wont fit.
- …no…I’m going to stop here…
The other catch with doing this space flight is that you wont be able to go to the toilet during the 3 hour flight. A special “NASA nappy” will be provided.
Having blogged mostly the wierd and uncomfortable aspects of touronauting in this and blog #26, I would like to say that there are still many redeeming, in my view, aspects of becoming a touronaut.
Seeing planet earth from space must be an incredible thing to do. I’m imagining what it would be like to amplify the Google Earth experience - perhaps it is something like it. I know that my impressions of planet earth, when viewed from and aircraft at 40,000 feet, are that the world is not such a big place at all, but that it is filled with so many and varied peoples, places, ideas and experiences.
There are fewer and fewer places on planet earth that have not been experienced by travellers. People have a great desire to see and do new things. It makes our lives all the more richer.
Space may well be the final frontier for tourism, and it will happen. Patrick Collins reveiwed a study conducted by the Japanene Rocket Society that considered the space tourism industry in 2030. Here is some of what Patrick said:
“If some 12 billion dollars of funding became available in the near future, commercial passenger space travel services to and from Earth orbit could begin in 2010. The business could reach 700,000 passengers /year by 2017, at a price of about 25,000/passenger dollars. The importance of this result is that 12 billion dollars is less than half of one year’s funding of government space agencies today, and it is therefore affordable.”
Doc Martin.