Have you heard of Anousheh Ansari? She's a space tourist, the fourth one in history and the first woman, and she has a blog that gets updated several times a day. (She can't blog live because of Internet connection outages during orbit; instead, she sends down emails that her friends post on the web.)
Only the very wealthy can afford space travel right now, but what will happen in 15 or 20 years? Will the merely well-off be able to go up? Will there be private space stations catering to the ultimate in tourism? And what would happen if many people experienced a view of Earth from space? That could be one of the drivers of Homo sapiens' maturation.
On a related note, Thomas P.M. Barnett notes a New York Times article about Mike Griffin, the director of NASA, visiting China. I hope we do start to cooperate in space.
2 comments:
Jane-
glad to see you back in the blogosphere. :)
I have another idea for how to get the big picture out there. Since the space station tourism industry will most likely cater to the millionaires, perhaps amusement parks can open new rides that simulate the journey. Picture something like the Imax but with a screen that surrounds you and also runs under your feet. That way the masses could also experience something close to an authentic view of their home planet. This can speed the maturation process for Homo Sapiens even faster. :)
-Eli
Amusement park rides! I love it! Like IMAX but with motion, right? I bet it would be fun if you included sound effects, centrifugal forces at take-off and maybe astronaut ice cream. Then you'd go up and see Earth. Too bad you can't simulate weightlessness. :-)
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