NASA Will Allow Tourists To Visit The International Space Station For The Low, Low Price Of $35,000 A Night
BBC- Nasa is to allow tourists to visit the International Space Station from 2020, priced at $35,000 (£27,500) per night. The US space agency said it would open the orbiting station to tourism and other business ventures.
There will be up to two short private astronaut missions per year, said Robyn Gatens, the deputy director of the ISS. Nasa said that private astronauts would be permitted to travel to the ISS for up to 30 days, travelling on US spacecraft. “Nasa is opening the International Space Station to commercial opportunities and marketing these opportunities as we’ve never done before,” chief financial officer Jeff DeWit said in New York. Nasa had previously banned any commercial use of the space station and prohibited astronaut’s from taking part in for-profit research.
The new commercial opportunities announced on Friday are part of a trajectory towards full privatisation of the ISS. US President Donald Trump published a budget last year which called for the station to be defunded by the government by 2025.
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Well in case you wanted to be an asshole and take a trip somewhere “different”, didn’t want to deal with the hordes of people flocking to Chernobyl because of an HBO show, and also had $100,000 or so laying around, NASA has your back. And I could not be more delighted. Not because my poor blogger ass could ever afford this trip or because it kinda cucks Trent’s nemesis Elon Musk by getting pedestrians in the space travel game. But because we are going to have a bunch of rich assholes that have no business being shot into space getting shot into space.
Have you ever been on that ride Mission: Space at Epcot that simulates what it’s like being launched into space? Probably not because who the fuck goes to Epcot to do anything other than eat and drink around the world? That being said, I have actually been on that ride because my wife wanted to try it out instead of throwing back sake bombs in Epcot Japan and the simulation being thrown out of the Earth’s atmosphere had me ready to puke and as you can tell by my physique, I don’t puke often.
If a Disney ride can fuck someone up good, what’s the real deal Holyfield going to do to a regular idiot like myself, even if they are in better shape? I know NASA will do everything in their power to make the trip safe and smooth. But this is also the same NASA that is pimping out rides to space in order to keep the lights on. Do you really want to put your life where you have enough disposable income to be sent into orbit on the line for some sweet Instagram pictures that will make everyone you went to high school with jealous? I sure as shit wouldn’t. Forget about you having to safely land back on Earth by riding one of those parachuted capsules into an ocean or desert (I have no clue how people re-enter Earth from space, but this is the only answer my stupid brain can come up with).
Then again, isn’t the $35,000 per night a humongous loophole since night technically doesn’t exist in space? Couldn’t people that never want to pay for housing again just pay 35 grand for a ride to the international space station then live there rent free (sorry for using a phrase ruined by dickhead sports fans that always tweet about living rent free in someone’s head)? NASA may have just turned the International Space Station into a hostel with a high one-time entry fee. If that’s the case, I couldn’t support this plan anymore as a blogger and cannot wait to see what the International Space Station is like there during international sporting events like the World Cup and the Olympic events that people actually care and get mad about. I’m pretty much just hoping the ISS turns into a rowdy sports bar over the next decade and if that loophole exists which means I am actually smarter than NASA nerds, that could be the case. Unfortunately for smut bloggers like myself that would cherish all the content that would come from that, I am almost definitely not smarter than any NASA nerd or anyone that has even entered a NASA building to drop off a package, clean the bathrooms, or visit their mom/dad.
P.S. Since I used a picture from the Deep Space Homer episode of The Simpsons as the thumbnail to this blog, it’s only right that I include the entire episode here for the people kind enough to click on the blog.
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Blogger’s Note: Seasons 1-10ish of The Simpsons should be shown in school so future generations know about it like they do the Pledge of Allegiance, multiplication tables, and My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas (I know Pluto got booted from planetary status. But that little mnemonic saying was pretty much the only thing I remember from elementary school, likely just because it mentioned pizza)