New passenger service to the Moon for $100M

[danrok]

Excalibur Almaz has announced that it is selling tickets to lunar orbit. The price is $100 million. Your golden ticket will entitle you to a complete astronaut experience.

New passenger service to the Moon for $100M | Ars Technica

Comments?

[ThunderRd]

What happened to Branson? He was thinking about doing this several years ago, Virgin Galactic or something like that. It was pricier, though, as I remember.

[danrok]

Welcome | Virgin Galactic

$200K.

[Gizmo]

That 200K is only to low earth orbit though, isn't it? That's something like 2 hours or so. The 100M package is a full trip to the moon and back, which is several days.

[Daniel ~]

The 100M package is a full trip to the moon and back, which is several days.

There is reason to hope such trip could last a lifetime...then drift of gossermer wings into oblivion...What guys sometimes forget is that the world isn't all bad! ":O}

[danrok]

Here's the one-way gig:
Home - Mars One

One-way trip to Mars, free if you qualify.

Seems crazy at first, but completely plausible if they can raise the money in sponsorship.

[Gizmo]

You know, if I was young and just starting out, I think I'd leap at that. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that I already have a family and would be too old to make the journey, I'd STILL leap at that.

I mean, think about it: the chance to live on an entirely NEW world, to see things that NO ONE has ever seen before with their own eyes. Sure, it'd be a tough life (especially at first), but it would also be the change to create a whole NEW future!

[danrok]

I'm sure many people will apply, but few of them would make the grade.

I mean, even though the application process is open to anyone, they're still going to be after the same people as NASA for example. Stable minded geniuses.

Opening it to anyone is just part of the promotional and marketing side of it.

I think their biggest hurdle is getting money. They liken it to sponsorship of the Olympics, which makes it sound easy enough.

But, it isn't really the same. This is very high-risk. They're counting on one single complex event working perfectly.

If it all goes wrong, no TV station will want to broadcast 4 people dying in space 24/7. They can't sell advertising around that.

They might have more luck with private donations. There are people who are rich enough to pay for it, just for the hell of it.

[Daniel ~]

Just my opinion, but go to mars and die on the way, or on mars or on the way back, any one of the three is 98% sure to kill you. Look at the early explorers, few are they who ever returned... just saying ":O}

[danrok]

People will queue up all the same.

235 people have died climbing Everest - which is essentially pointless, yet still they go, tripping over corpses on the way up.

[Daniel ~]

Have you see the pictures of the lines to ride Mt Everest? They seem to think it's Disney Land! hundreds of people in a line climbing, as you say, over the fallen, do they ever ask, ...Am I worthy?

[Gizmo]

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

Have you see the pictures of the lines to ride Mt Everest? They seem to think it's Disney Land! hundreds of people in a line climbing, as you say, over the fallen, do they ever ask, ...Am I worthy?

I'm going to die. Nothing is going to change that.

So here's the choice: die tomorrow crossing Rangeline to buy a donut.

Or die trying to achieve something that might actually be useful (mars, not everest).

[Daniel ~]

Ah Dude! You are so eminently and immediately useful to all of us! Don't mistake excitement and glory for the useful.

Every man who sees his duty done is of use to me.

From the Gita:

"It is better that man should do his own duty no matter how humble
than to try to do the duty of another no matter how glorious..."

In the best of all possible worlds, This must be the best of all possible lives for me...Yes?

Please stay home, we have need of you here...":O}

[Gizmo]

And if I should see it as my duty to traipse off and explore new frontiers?

Human knowledge is not advanced if we don't dare to do the impossible once in a while. The human condition is not improved by living in grass huts and eking a living out of mud pits. It is only when we dare great things that we improve not just ourselves, but our people. The invention of the plow occured because somebody dared to think "What if" and then pursue it. The development of anti-biotics occured because someone dared to ask "why" and investigated it. The first settlers of north america arrived here because they wondered what was on the other side of that wonderous new land bridge that had opened up.

Duty is that which MUST be done, but it is not ALL that can be done.

[danrok]

I think the ultimate goal is to ensure that mankind can continue beyond the life-span of Earth.

I don't really see Mars as being the final destination, but it seems to be the most ideal first step, like a testbed to show if we can progress further.

It's almost as if it has all be planned, at that Mars is there for a reason.

The chances are that there are other planets which would be more hospitable to humans. So, if we can survive on Mars, we'd have the skills to survive elsewhere.

[Daniel ~]

Originally Posted by Gizmo

And if I should see it as my duty to traipse off and explore new frontiers?

Confucius says:

*"If it is a man's duty to travel then he should travel.

"If it is a man's duty to stay home, then he should stay home."


Gizmo:

"Human knowledge is not advanced if we don't dare to do the impossible once in a while. The human condition is not improved by living in grass huts and eking a living out of mud pits.

Daniel:

*If we have grass huts and mud pits who needs improvement?

Gizmo:

It is only when we dare great things that we improve not just ourselves, but our people. The invention of the plow occurred because somebody dared to think "What if" and then pursue it. The development of antibiotics occurred because someone dared to ask "why" and investigated it. The first settlers of north america arrived here because they wondered what was on the other side of that wonderous new land bridge that had opened up.

Duty is that which MUST be done, but it is not ALL that can be done.



Daniel:

To improve one's self is indeed a great thing. Plows and antibiotics and indeed useful things in their place.

Here our views part somewhat.. The First settles arrived because (seems most likely) this is where the herds were going across the Bering straights...

The First Europeans arrived because they desperately sought to escape the hell they had created for themselves at home....We know how well that worked out for the nice people they met when they arrived.

Human exploration must begin at home, with the matter at hand.

"How Can I help my brothers break this unyielding Earth?"

" How can I put an end to all this dying"

These are simple questions... they were asked a million million times before they found their answer in the mind of one who stayed home.

One who remained behind and enslaved themselves to one burning question.

That destroyed their peace.

A question they could not put down until it found its solution within them, within their mind, and when the quest was fulfilled,

*new realities were born.

You wish to see man advance. Then we must go home and learn what it is to grasp our limitation. Learn what it is to leave more than we take. To gain a discriminating awareness of life and the forces she veils in her beauty.

Travel as far as you must, as far as duty takes you.

Know that to remain at home is to remain with the things at hand. Duty is always in the moment alway calls to us in the NOW.

To regain the now is greatness itself. To gain the Middle is to remain with things at hand untill they find their solution within you.

The way ahead is the way back.

And Mars isn't going to change anything that needs changing...That must be done at home...unless it is one's duty to travel...":O}

[Daniel ~]

Originally Posted by danrok

I think the ultimate goal is to ensure that mankind can continue beyond the life-span of Earth.

I don't really see Mars as being the final destination, but it seems to be the most ideal first step, like a testbed to show if we can progress further.

It's almost as if it has all be planned, at that Mars is there for a reason.

The chances are that there are other planets which would be more hospitable to humans. So, if we can survive on Mars, we'd have the skills to survive elsewhere.

Consider this possibility:

We are connected to this place in ways we may never comprehend. We are a product of Earth's making and we belong nowhere else. No where else will EVER support us in any meaningful way.

The the real conditions of multi-generational survival may require far more of the Earth than we realize. That only here are we supported by the biosphere, only here do we have allies. Anywhere else we would be target number one for anything that moves and eats.

We were never supposed to out live our birth place...I would truly hate to die anywhere else....":O}

[ThunderRd]

Thunder says: "Wow."

Who wound you up today, Dan? You're on a roll

It's fun to have the old Daniel~ back again.

[Gizmo]

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

*If we have grass huts and mud pits who needs improvement?

If you're ok with diphtheria, tetanus, and being dead by 35, then I'm happy for you.

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

Here our views part somewhat.. The First settles arrived because (seems most likely) this is where the herds were going across the Bering straights...

And those first settlers had at least SOME idea of what awaited them because (seems most likely) someone had taken the time to explore ahead, to see what threats there might be and what challenges there were, and how one might overcome them.

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

Human exploration must begin at home, with the matter at hand.

"How Can I help my brothers break this unyielding Earth?"

" How can I put an end to all this dying"

Is there no room in your world-view for simple curiousity? For the simple joy of KNOWING? What a bleak world you must live in if that is so.

Consider this: the skills I possess today, the abilities that YOU prize and cherish, the capabilities that allow me to provide for my family; ALL these things came from my time spent as a young man EXPLORING, doing and learning things that even my own father thought had no value. And now YOU choose to tell me that those things have no worth? That exploring is not of value? What a narrow-minded way of thinking!

We stand to learn a great deal in attempting to live on Mars. As you rightly pointed out, even the most inhospitable environment on Earth is still down-right comfy compared to the most inviting location on Mars. Thus, learning to survive on Mars will teach us more about ourselves, about what we require to live, about what it takes to sustain life HERE.

Could we learn that WITHOUT going to Mars? Probably. But doing so would not throw those requirements into stark relief the way going to Mars would.

We are still a young, immature race, and we both know that. Many times I will tell my son not to do something, and then shake my head as I watch him do it anyway. Some lessons can only be learned through pain, and perhaps it is best that way. On the other hand, I have spent my entire adult life doing what other people said was impossible, so perhaps it also good to test the boundaries once in a while with a new way of thinking.

[danrok]

The first European settlers in America weren't the first settlers, because of course there were already humans there.

The evidence tells us that the human race originates in one place in Africa.

The first migrants migrated a very long time ago. Not forgetting other events such as the ice age.