Space Tourism First Hand

starexplorer writes "You've probably heard that Zero-G Corporation is offering weightless trips to the public. But now, Space.com is reporting an insider's assessment of the experience. Space Tourism seems to be taking off with the public, and with advertisers, as evidenced by Volvo's new 'win a trip to space' contest that kicked off during the Super Bowl."

Comments

No, thank you

[Pan T. Hose]

While there is no one in space to hear my scream, I'll just stay with sex tourism, thank you very much.

Uh, SUPERBOWL...?

[MerryGoByeBye]

Gee, if there's anything that would make my ultimate geek-masturbatory fantasy-come-true of going up into space any better, it would definitely be sitting next to a redneck football fan.

That would be just the best.

</sarcasm>

Just one big commercial

[jangobongo]

Well, that video was like a 10 minute commercial for Zero-G, Volvo, and Diet Rite all in one. Very glowing, "Every one should try this" and "Don't worry about space sickness. It's not a big deal!" The only thing they didn't include was the cost. So here you are - for the next two available flights:

• Flight ZG-28 from Fort Lauderdale, FL - Saturday, Mar 12, 2005 - $3,750.00 + Tax
• 
  Flight ZG-29 from Fort Lauderdale, FL - Saturday, Apr 09, 2005 - $3,750.00 + Tax

A more realistic (less-paid-endorsement-like) first person account of a ride on the "vomit comet" can be found here. I think that I'll stick to getting my zero gravity thrills on a roller coaster, thanks!

Re:Just one big commercial

[FirienFirien]

The vomit comet was called such for a reason. I used to be an RAF cadet, so I occasionally got to fly in little two-seater propeller-driven aircraft, and there were usually several people on any day who were nauseated or ill from some aspect of the flight, whether it was a bit of turbulence, flying upside-down, and so on. The body just isn't used to the varying Gs - which is why astronauts have to go through the whole spinning machine thing, being tumbled in all directions - either they can deal with it, they become able to deal with it, or they're out of the system. Globs of vom in zero-G are icky, and I bet the motion of vomiting isn't helped by not knowing which way is up.

Paying thousands of dollars for a zero-G flight is all very well, but if you were going to do it, you'd better make sure you've been on a fair few rollercoasters and built up some resistance, because spending thousands of dollars to be sick in a novel way doesn't seem particularly appealing!

You nailed it.

[Red Rocket]

I think that I'll stick to getting my zero gravity thrills on a roller coaster, thanks!

This basically amounts to a $3750 roller coaster ride. It's a really nice roller coaster, but how many different ground-anchored roller coaster experiences could you buy for $3750!! It's not even close to worth it.

John Carmack's first-hand account of Zero-G

[FleaPlus]

John Carmack tried this out, and posted an account here. They've also got a video available.

Here's a paste:

Since I got involved with the X-Prize, Peter Diamandis has been talking to me about his other project, http://www.nogravity.com/ . Like most people, he was hitting me up to invest in his company, but I said that I would rather be a customer than an investor (where possible, this is a better way to support companies). It took two years for it to go from "We are going to be starting flights in a couple months!" to actually getting the airplane to Dallas, but today I took all of the Armadillo crew and some of my partners from Id Software up on a chartered flight, "beta testing" the experience.

It was awesome!

We had 14 people, so it was only a little over half the full capacity, giving us plenty of room to bounce around. Doing the martian (1/3) and lunar (1/6) gravity parabolas is a really good idea, as it lets people get a little used to the movement before completely floating around. Many people thought the lunar gravity parabolas were the best part.

We did a total of 17 parabolas, the normal 15 and two extras at the end. At least half the people thought that was plenty (or two too many), but a bunch of us were like "Ten more parabolas!"

Nobody puked, although we did have one person staring solemnly at his barf bag at one point, and a few people had to go sit down for a bit. They gave recommendations for prescription medication that a couple people went and got filled, but the rest of us just took over the counter dramamine pills that they provided. One of the crew mentioned a promotional flight they had recently flown with a bunch of unmedicated journalists that had been hitting the cocktail bar, resulting in fully one third of them losing it.

The time went by so quickly that you completely forgot half the things you planned on trying. A couple of us were doing low gravity judo throws, and I took a shot at the worlds first flying armbar in zero gravity (didn't work out too well). Most of us that were doing fairly aggressive bouncing around landed on our heads at least once, so I have some concern that they will eventually have someone test the liability waiver.

The bottom line is that I highly recommend the experience, and I am almost certainly going to do it again at some point. Peter said most of their bookings are for corporate incentive programs, which is probably the most fun way to do it, but grabbing a friend and getting tickets for one of the passenger flights that will be starting soon out of Florida would still be memorable. The current individual price is $3k.

The take home lesson is that we need to add a lot of cabin volume to our first consumer suborbital spacecraft. Adding an extra 63" by 12' of cabin volume will only cost us about 250 pounds. You won't get much more total zero-g than on the parabolas, but it will be contiguous, and combined with the view, the boost burn, the reentry acceleration, and the exclusivity, I do think it is going to be a ride worth $100k. Zero-G is almost certain to stir up a lot of excitement about manned space flight in general.

http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/zg/pic1.jpg

http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/zg/pic2.jpg

http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2004_09_26/zer o-g.mpg

Re:John Carmack's first-hand account of Zero-G

[meringuoid]

a lot of cabin volume

Hmm... If you stripped down an A380 to the bare essentials, and converted the entire cavernous interior into a monumental bouncy castle... how utterly cool would it be?

Re:John Carmack's first-hand account of Zero-G

[hcdejong]

The A380 has two decks that I'm not sure can be removed. You may want to use the Airbus A300-600ST instead.

Maybe later

[AndreySeven]

Once I'm loaded and can afford paying thousands of dollars for a 25 second roller coaster ride, maybe...

I would like the weightlessness to last more than 25 seconds, and have a private room in which i can entertain a woman... *goes into a long daydream*

Only $3750?

[The Datamangler]

After watching the video, I say clip your coupons and sign me up. How many parabolas do you get for $3750? I also want a private chamber- space sex would have to be the biggest seller for future space travel, afterwards, the view out the window is killer!

My own photographs.

[cogpp]

I got to take part in some parabolic flights last year and have put up the photographs and some videos here.

Space ???

[grozzie2]

I'm really curious. How does a ride in a beat up old cargo plane qualify as 'space tourism'?

I've spent many a nite pushing those things thru the sky, does that make me an astronaut ?