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British Man Trades Frequent Flyer Miles for Space Shot
lvmoon writes "Start saving up your airline miles. Alan Watts, a British businessman, was able to use his 2,000,000 frequent flyer miles for a space flight, a ticket aboard a 2009 Virgin Galactic space flight." From the article: "Electrician Alan Watts said he flew to and from the United States on Virgin Atlantic flights more than 40 times in the past six years, earning him enough miles to take the trip into space with Virgin's space wing, London's The Sun newspaper reported Friday. The trip cost 2 million frequent flier miles, compared to the 90,000 miles required for a first-class flight from London to New York." Besides being funny, does this say anything about space travel in the 21st century? Is space is no longer the final frontier? I'm pretty sure Roddenberry didn't have frequent flier miles in mind when he came up with the Enterprise.
He's lucky too because he's got this free ticket in before the much expected hyperinflation in the air-miles currency.
This surprises some people but in fact, air-miles are a form of currency. They can be exchanged for real world goods and services and therefore have an intrinsic real world value. The problem is that the vast majority of air-miles go unspent. Since a constantly increasing amount of currency is chasing a limited amount of goods the value of the currency is constantly falling.
The fact that this guy was able to accrue two million air-miles doing a normal job tells you that inflation has already crippled the currency. I soon expect air-miles to be practically worthless.
Simon
thank you for shattering my vision of the future, oh great oracle of slashdot. Wanna elaborate on how you arrived at that conclusion?
Now, instead of making fun of his name, his parents, his loong nose and cribbing about Virgin, let us behave like adults and congratulate him for being the first tourist to exchange miles for space. (literally).
Way to go Watts !
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
It's just artificial preliminary publicity, don't think otherwise.
2M miles? 40 trips? US->UK? WTF?
Considering a circumnavigation of the equator is only 25k miles and London->Los Angeles is only about 5500 miles, it would take a LAX-LHR round-trip every two weeks without fail for six years to truly earn all that in real air miles. Obviously dude got most of that mileage by racking up credit-card miles as no sane person, regardless of business requirement, would keep up a travel schedule that ridiculous for that long without a break.
His last name is WATTs and he is a, fellow ELECTRICIAN. How awesome. I am an elctrician also. It looks like I need to start flying virgin air to get the 2 million frequent flyer mile electrician special. That is just awesome.
This story is from "The Sun".
That newspaper is the lowest of the low, the gutter press. Their normal faire consists of entirely fabricated stories and their conduct is entirely unethical. Do not place ANY credence to stories printed in this paper.
The Hubbert peak. The end of the era of cheap energy. Oil won't run out, it'll just get more and more expensive to produce, taking up a larger and larger proportion of the economy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil
There will have to be something very valuable in space to justify the energy required to get there. Probably the military domination required to ensure access to the remaining oil supplies. The Outer Space Treaty? Not worth the paper it's written on.
Deleted
A) They won't be going to space in the sense that astronauts (and especially some cosmonauts) have been. It's just a few minutes of staying at a considerable height...
B) The virgin spaceship is not a rocket. Takeoff should not be a bad experience.
*points to parent*
And I'm off topic?
I must add my view that for something like this, we really should leave it to the professionals before we are sure of what can and can't be done on commercial levels.
Its hard to get professionals to do that if they're all stuck doing things at governmental levels.
Besides, the comparison to Columbia is completely inapt. The shuttles' method of delivery has been compared to stacking TNT to the height of a street lamp pole just to launch a nut into space.
The Virgin method is much closer to traditional aviation, which is a mature science with a much larger industry which has a large amount of experience in doing what they do. Ok, so they're sticking a rocket motor on what pretty much amounts to an aircraft, but at least it doesn't need fuel tanks which weigh multiple amounts as much as the craft.
summary asks : does this say anything about space travel in the 21st century?
In 21st century, one would accumulate frequent flier miles from 40 trips to space to earn a single trip from US to UK.
Yes, but as has been said before by many Slashdot posters, getting to the edge of space and getting into orbit are as different as driving to the store and flying across the country. The Virgin craft will not get into orbit, and is thus useless for any sustained space flight or delivery. You are comparing apples and oranges sir. There is currently no other way to get a nut into orbit other than stacking TNT to the height of a street lamp.
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
Minerals? -- space has more than one can imagine
Space.... has SPACE -- using automated robots and orbiting factories to process raw minerals we will construct floating cities that will rival the best on earth
Why did Europeans colonise the Americas? I mean, look at the expense! :rolls eyes:
I been saving for over 10 years, waiting to find something good to spend my air miles on. So, Mr Branson, what can you offer me for my 2,537?
I hardly think that using frequent flyer miles to paddle around in near earth orbit is cause to lose all sense of wonder at the vastness of space and the endless possibilities that it represents.
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
Yes, everyone seems to have forgotten that a number of issues including unexpected rolls occurred during flights 15p and 16p of SpaceShipOne, and while it never seemed that the flights were to end catastrophically, things were still very edgy. I suppose that many of those celebrities willing to risk their lives for 3 1/2 minutes of weightlessness must think one or more of the following:
1 The experience is worth the risk
2 They can brag about having gone to space
3 Their lives are not worth living anymore and pushing the envelope is the only way to derive pleasure at this point
4 They will get some type of immortality in history
The second is pure ego, and may get a blowjob or two, the third reason is pathetic, and the fourth is unlikely, as some rich monkey will not go down in history for being the 7th guy to go on a commercial space flight. So that leaves the first. Is 3 1/2 minutes of weightlessness worth the risk? I'm not so sure. I believe you can get a number of equally rewarding experiences in life without such risk. There's also the Vomit Comit. It's only 30 seconds, but what's the big difference?
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
Its cool and all but these are suborbital flights I don't know about you but when I first think of space flight I think of being in space for a hell of a lot more than a few minutes. Its a great first step but sounds more like an extended amusement park ride than actual tourism to me its as if you were to go on a cruise to the Caymans, they dropped you off on the coast for 5 minutes then you had to get back on and leave. If anything I am just happy that all these wealthy people are paying the first adopter fee so the rest of us can one day get a real space flight a lot cheaper, a lot longer, and probably a hell of a lot better.
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
"Besides being funny, does this say anything about space travel in the 21st century? Is space is no longer the final frontier? I'm pretty sure Roddenberry didn't have frequent flier miles in mind when he came up with the Enterprise."
...).
Perhaps not, but what he had in mind when he came up with Enterprise was space travel at speeds that take you to the stratosphere of a planet
in a another quadrant of our galaxy within a few years, not flights to earth's stratosphere.
I think your statement may be more suitable 300-2000 years from now (perhaps
he second is pure ego, and may get a blowjob or two,
Dude. If you think this is any less reason to go to space than the other three, you are nuts!
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Space travel is a temporary situation. It will cost too much and become unfeasible in the next 50 - 100 years.
You have that back to front. The current difficulty of doing space travel is temporary, because it is the result of poor strength of materials and poor energy usage.
Materials technology is improving at an extraordinary pace, and there is now a whole industry dedicated to manufacturing nanotubes of one form or another, despite this being only the beginning of work on nanoscale materials. Much greater things are on the way. And with stronger, lighter materials you can build much better space-worthy craft, not only hugely safer in the hostile medium but also able to withstand greater dynamic forces more safely. And more cheaply!
Then we come to energy. Contrary to the daily propaganda of environmentalists, there is no shortage of energy on the planet --- the surface of the Earth receives about 150 thousand times more energy from the sun than mankind is forecast to need by the year 2020. Our "energy problems" simply reflect our poor ability to harness that near-zero-cost energy, currently.
But that can change, especially in the context of space flight.
For a start, we can rise up through the bulk of the atmosphere almost without any energy cost at all, and many outfits are already experimenting with that, to the very edge of space.
And secondly, once up there, solar energy is freely available, and as long as there is still residual atmosphere around you, this gives you matter which you can use for propulsion, slowly building up speed as you skip through the upper layers. A relatively small amount of extra reaction mass is needed to boost the orbit out the final few dozen miles once you have close to orbital speed.
In due course then, on materials and energy grounds there is every reason to forecast a very bright and buoyant future for space travel. NASA-type costs are not required, as long as you're not in a hurry.
No, but Kirk had plenty of "frequent flier miles" with every alien female he could get his hands on, if you know what I mean
The sea changes color, but the sea does not change.
Since I joined the Fortran Standardisation Committee in 1999, I flew about 15 times to the continent on the Left Side of the Atlantic, and I consider myself an *in*frequent flyer.
Oh yes, because of course the government professionals are the ones who know how to do things commercially, cheaply and efficiently. Of course.
Perhaps instead of voicing your ill-informed opinion you should leave it to the professionals to comment on it. Which they have, in spades, supporting the efforts of the commercial space tourism industry. Most of these outfits have ex-astronauts working for them.
Finding out what can and can't be done on commercial levels requires doing it on commercial levels.
No. Space travel is a temporary situation. It will cost too much and become unfeasible in the next 50 - 100 years.
Really, what happens when the sun dies out? Or the earth's core cools off resulting in no magnetic field which will lead to the atmosphere evaporating into space?
Won't be anyone around if we haven't traveled into space...
But I suppose it would be a moot point if no one was around to care that all the humans died off.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I disagree, I'd say that there is an enormous initial investment required to a) get to space in the first place, and b) develop the technology needed to sustain life indefinitely in space, but the potential payout is huge, once we've figured it out. I predict instead that the number of living people who have traveled in space will always be greater than 50% of the set of all people who have traveled in space.
Lets start refering to The War Against Terror by it's initials. . .
I was surprised myself, about the the whole miles-buissness.
But than i looked into the papers of my airline, and there is TONS of stuff that boosts the miles.
Going first class? ==miles*5
Spending money for extra stuff(reservations, ect)? +xk miles bonus
using a senator card? Getting miles shoved into your ass for sneezing (figurtively spoken. IIRC, the highest bonus multipliers were like 10 or 15 or so. Like a pinball machine)
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
So he got 2 million frequent flyer miles from 40 trips. He could get a first class trip for 90,000 miles. So he could have got 22 free flight. More than one free flight per two paid ones. Are the frequent flyer systems really that good?
Well, unless you found another frontier beyond space, I'm gonna say no.
qntm.org
Bzzzt. False. If this were true, 1/3 of all the messages on Slashdot would have to be modded to negative one. Simple fact: it got modded down because Slashdot has this "we will eventuall colonize the galaxy religous belief". Go against the Slashdot religion, get modded down. It is the equivilent of the inquisition, but with folks too cowardly to actually go and physically confront someone.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Really, what happens when the sun dies out? Or the earth's core cools off resulting in no magnetic field which will lead to the atmosphere evaporating into space?
Not sure about the accuracy of the second part of your statement. However, it is not going to happen for hundreds of millions or even billions of years. We can't even make policy based on things we know will help us in twenty years, much less worry about millions of years.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
who is going to be first to join the 60-mile-high club?
You modded parent as troll? I think it's a valid assessment of the (possible) future. Don't mod somebody down just because he says something you don't want to hear.
Scotty! I ... want you ... to ... prepare to beam up our ... 20th century ... comedy ... collection!
Captain! I kinnae give 'em "The Waterboy"! She'll blow!
Fascinating! Captain, I believe they are flying the new ultra high seat density birds of prey with 15% less legspace. I thought only Cherry Galactic had them!
Dammit, don't do it, Jim! At least ask them for their sealed peanut bags. I'm running out of supplies in sick bay!
Besides being funny, does this say anything about space travel in the 21st century? Is space is no longer the final frontier? I'm pretty sure Roddenberry didn't have frequent flier miles in mind when he came up with the Enterprise.
That is 100% wrong. This is exactly what Gene Roddenberry had in mind. For a common person to be able to expiernce the wonders of space. Give props to him, we wouldn't be here without his vision.
Also... really slashdot...that comment is pure flamebait for this site.
'Truth' is linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it...
I can't wait to trade my frequent launcher parsecs for trips on Virgin Historic's time machines.
I can show you pix of the trips now if you're improbable enough to stand it.
--
make install -not war
Of course, he'll only be able to go if he books it six months in advance and the flight is on a Tuesday after 8 PM. And he'll have to fly coach (ie: cargo).
...they mean UP.
rj
Switch to nuclear and run vechiles with hydrogen, batteries or vegetable oil. The anti-nuclear morons will complain, but they will anyway no matter what you do. Or drill a deep hole in the ground, drop some water there and watch geothermal heat turn it to steam. Or build tidal or wave harnesses in coastal regions to harness said water motions. And so on.
The whole peak oil hysteria is caused because we humans are lazy and haven't bothered improving our energy production technology significantly in a century or so. Maybe it will give the long-needed kick in the rear to start making rational, rather than just money-making, choices in energy policy.
How about endless amount of sunlight that can be harnessed and beamed back to Earth or used to power factories in orbit or in Moon) ?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Oh come on guys, his slashdot name is "Ralph Spoilsport."
:)
"SPOILSPORT!" I think that explains much.
New webcomic updated on Sundays: HERE
Gee, you're right. Humans aren't curious, or adventurous. They have no sense of wonder, no desire for experience, no appreciation of the sublime, no desire to go anywhere just because it's there, no ability to achieve greatness just to express their appreciation of the divine. And to whatever extent they do have those things, they're just children's dreams, and everyone knows how worthless *those* are.
You wouldn't be worth a sneer if children weren't reading.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
>>Our "energy problems" simply reflect our poor ability to harness that near-zero-cost energy, currently.
My god, you're right! Energy is practically free!
Harnessing free energy must be easy!
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
The question though is would it be cheaper to kill a few million people in a neighbouring country or to go searching through space for water and minerals.
Find a big chunk of minerals and drop it on your neighbours.
You can't take the sky from me...
Is space is no longer the final frontier?
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way up to suborbital flight, but that's just peanuts to space.
-- with apologies to Douglas Adams
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
Don't be pessimistic. The use of frequent flier miles to get a ticket into space means that spaceflight is finally here in a real sense. It's not just for governments anymore.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
Since if you pay for this flight, and it only goes up 63 miles and back down, it would only accrue the typical minimum 500 mile most airlines give on short flights.
Now if you were going into orbit, it would be worth paying for because you would earn enough miles for another trip right there. You go a lot of miles on any orbital flight.
(In fact, it is amusing to point out that while the airline industry likes to point out that air travel is far safer than car travel in terms of deaths per passenger mile, the space shuttle is even better -- even though it's killed one out of every 15 people to go up in it.)
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
While you are waiting to travel into space with virgin galactic, why not try my similar ocean voyages?
You are put into a canoe and pushed 20 feet into the atlantic on the end of a rope, then pulled back after a few minutes. It is far cheaper and simpler than those crazily over-complex 'ocean liners'.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
"they're the modern day catastrophists they've got practical solutions (know all the right equations) they're the self-appointed righteous pragmatists and they know 50 ways to save the world"
To put it another way:
You don't have any proof that peak oil is going to happen. It's just the standard catastrophist call of "you better do what I say or something very bad will happen."
For all you know, we'll get fusion worked out in five years and we'll have tons of cheap, clean energy causing a massive DROP in oil prices.
IMO, I think neither case is likely. As oil prices rise, we will gradually shift towards other sources of energy and materials. (At least, that's how it will happen if we can manage to get the Texas oilmen out the Whitehouse.)
Life is too short to proofread.
Wonderous things will happen.
For one, hopefully this: http://www.darkhorizons.com/news06/060921b.php will not come to pass.
Spicoli as Einstein? The HORROR!
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
But that's a bogus comparision: Frequent flyer miles can't be redeemed to get the equivalent of the highest avavilable fare for that
seat type. They can only be redeemed to get the junk seats that are left over on the unpopular schedules, usually on an indirect route
with multiple stops. (For comparison: If you are really prepared to pay the highest available fare for your seat type, you'll usually get
on the most direct flight, at the time you want, on the day you want, by the most direct route possible, and with the minimum of
restrictions about cancellation and alteration.)
At best, FF redemption tickets are barely better in convenience, availability, and service than the cheapest bargain tickets you can
buy for the route. When you use that number in your comparison, you'll see that FF miles have already suffered significant inflation.
On a side note: Frequent-flyer-redemption tickets aren't exactly free. You still pay the fees and taxes, and they are a significant
percentage of the cost of your ticket. I recently paid over $60 to redeem FF miles for DEN-ATL, where the normal discount price (think
lowest thing on Travelocity booked weeks in advance) would be about $225 (both figures include all taxes and fees, and both are for
internet-booked tickets). The out-of-pocket portion of a FF-redemption trip has increased over the years, and this is another
form of FF-currency inflation.
Space no longer the final frontier?
Has the United States finally collapsed?
End times?
Is your mother a whore?
What, I'm just asking.
Damn I'm in the Virgin frequent flyer club and I must have missed it!
8 174443458
http://www.breakingtravelnews.com/article/2006092
A) At the considerable height they will be at, they're in space. No, they will not be there long and they will not orbit.
B) The Virgin spaceship is a rocket. It is rocket-powered. It has significant thrust on takeoff, and the thrust is unmodulated, so it will be many Gs pushing them in to their seats. At ignition, it is horizontal, not vertical, so they save one 1G pushing them back against their seat. But since they are trying to reach space, the pilot pulls back on the stick and goes vertical very rapidly, at which point the experience is no different than being in any other rocket.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Don't accept any red shirt offered before the trip.
I wonder what 12 million pepsi points would get.
Have you read my journal today?
They are different but not that different. What changes is the height of the pile of dynamite, that you can stay in orbit indefinitely, and the need for far more padding (something to dissipate about 20 times more heat) when you come down.
I believe you can get a number of equally rewarding experiences in life without such risk.
You are entitled to your opinion. But clearly a lot of people disagree with you on this. And that's really all there is to say.What worries me more is about their preparations for the journey, astronauts spend years preparing to go into space and now it is being treated like a long-haul flight for some, I'm sure they will have some training but are they sure it is enough for the kind of forces that their body is going to experience while taking off?
I'm puzzled by what you think happens when someone is launched into space. They just experience more acceleration than normal. There are various ways to experience this on Earth. For example, a centrifuge can easily prepare someone for the higher acceleration of an actual launch. There are amusement park rides that expose for brief periods acceleration levels equivalent to what would probably be experienced in an early generation commercial ride.
Just existing in Earth's gravitational field, as we do, subjects us to a one gee field. A launch and reentry probably would subject someone to 2 to 7 times as much acceleration with more than that possible in emergencies just like it is in Earth-based transportation emergencies. This is all quite mundane and pretty well understood.It's not a round-trip ticket.
is the human brain
What make it "valid"? This is standard trolling technique 101. Drop in a controversial topic without explaining why you hold that opinion. Pick up 10+ replies and giggle as people like you and me debate whether it was a troll or not.
OTOH, does he act like someone who would troll?
Um, it's because oil is much much cheaper than the alternatives. Said alternatives will come online as oil gets more expensive. However, they will still take up a significantly larger proportion of the economy than oil has over the last century.
Btw, money making, is the rational choice.
Deleted
In retrospect I didn't really believe in what I was saying when I typed it. Eh, momentum gets you sometimes...
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie