Making Other Plans

 Why not spend the holidays off planet this year? I know, it sounds like something out of Heinlein, but we could you know. With apologies to Beth Jarrett, we could all use some sort of lift this Christmas, and the burgeoning space tourist industry seems like the best place to put all our vacation dollars.

Consider that the nature of space travel requires clean, even sterile, environments and the efficiency of the recycling of air on those newfangled rockets is second to none. Once you get over that whole claustrophobia thing, you'll be able to enjoy the safety and quiet of the vacuum of space.

Of course, there are some potential obstacles to this plan: Reservations for a seat on Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic will set you back a quarter to a half million dollars apiece, so you probably want to check your list twice before taking anyone naughty. The billionaires who are running this concession are currently booking about seven years in advance, with a preference to high profile astronaut types like William Shatner and Michael Strahan. The pretend captain of a pretend spaceship and a former American football player turned morning talk show host. So you can see that the screening process is pretty rigorous. 

And what do you get for your hundreds of thousands of dollars? How about a snappy blue jumpsuit and eleven minutes of roaring into out of the atmosphere and plunging back into it. Twenty-five thousand dollars a minute. 

But you get to go to space, and you won't have to fret about COVID or finding a parking spot. 

Or maybe you'd rather go sit in a darkened movie theater with the periodically masked rabble, listening for a cough in the midst of a surge. How about Disneyland, with the throngs of probably vaxxed individuals and their children who probably keep up with the latest precautions and mandates. And who can afford the slightly less expensive than a ride into space voyage into the imagineered pocket of California heretofore known as the happiest place on earth. 

Now, one of the most terrifying places on earth. 

So, I'm asking: Why not spend the holidays off planet this year?