Come to Space with Me

Would you like to come to space with me?

Today I went to a conference roundtable session on Space Tourism. It was a bit surreal listening to the very real conversations about commercial space travel, how “certified space (travel) agent” is apparently a thing, how one company expects to have a fleet of spaceships in five years’ time, and how it’s “not just for millionaires anymore” – for $125K you, too, can fly to the edge of space!

If you, like me, do not have a cool $125K just lying around, there’s another free way you can get to space in 2024:

If you want to get your name added to the 2024 shuttle, sign the message in a bottle here! According to NASA’s website, the names will be etched onto microchips mounted on the spacecraft, along with the following poem (watch/listen to it, it’s mesmerizing), as a “message from humankind” and sent 1.8 billion miles to Europa…

The spaceship will, according to NASA, “conduct dozens of flybys of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, gathering detailed measurements to determine if the moon has conditions suitable for life.”

Conditions suitable for life. Okay, as if Space Tourism wasn’t crazy enough, I suppose real estate has gotten a little wild on Earth, so let’s just move to an ice moon? Or maybe we’ll find some neighbours there who’ll think we’re very nice for sending them a poem. (It is a very nice thing to do! I would be quite happy to receive a poem from an off-world civilization!)

For my fellow bloggers/writers, if you could send one thing you’ve written as a message out into the universe, what would it be? (Feel free to post your link in the comments below…)

Header photo: Anh Nguyen / Pexels