On the aptly-named Space Cynic blog, Shubber Ali complained on Sunday about an article in the Sydney Morning Herald that gave what he felt was an overly rosy view of the emerging space tourism industry. As he put it: “‘Oh, no,’ i thought to myself. The Kool-Aid has made it to Australia.”
While the article was originally only available in the print edition, it’s now available online. Reading through it does produce a few cringe-worthy moments: the reporter forgot about ISS tourist Greg Olsen, and lumps together some poorly-funded ventures like Reaction Engines with Virgin Galactic. Much of the article attempts to describe what a prospective Virgin Galactic tourist will experience. Interestingly, the article refers to Virgin’s vehicle as the “V.S.S. Enterprise”; that’s the name that was bandied about for the first SpaceShipTwo vehicle when the project was first announced in 2004, but hasn’t been used much, if at all, by the company recently.
The article concludes with the “five questions you’re dying to ask about space tourism.” Odds are you haven’t been dying to ask most of these, like this:
Q Is there any truth to the rumour that space flight could cause breast implants to explode?
A The MythBusters program tested the claim and declared it busted, but the only way to know for sure is to give Pamela Anderson a free ticket.
Oh, let’s not bring that up again, please…
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