| Let's say you've got the right stuff, decent health and | | | | into the culture, or it will die. |
| a burning desire to loose your bonds to planet Earth. If | | | | Seek a career as a pilot or a crew member for one |
| you are not scheduled to fly on the Space Shuttle as | | | | of the new spacelines. Or you could go with a |
| a professional astronaut by the Shuttle's retirement | | | | government job. NASA hires pilots and payload |
| date of 2010, maybe space tourism is your thing. Don't | | | | specialists. The Europeans, too, are looking to expand |
| have $20 million for an outer space adventure to the | | | | their astronaut corps, according to Aviation Week |
| International Space Station (ISS)? Or $200,000 for a | | | | & Space Technology. |
| suborbital version of space exploration? As Star | | | | Participate in a space talent reality show. Virgin |
| Trek's Spock used to say, there are always | | | | Galactic's boss Sir Richard Branson is planning |
| alternatives. | | | | something called "Astronaut Idol", in which six |
| You could become a science fiction celebrity. William | | | | contestants will vie for a spot on one of his |
| Shatner (Captain James Tiberius Kirk of Star Trek | | | | spaceships. Although the first flight won't take place |
| fame) has been offered a free ride to suborbital | | | | until 2009, the show could kick off as early as 2007. |
| space on Virgin Galactic's new spaceship Enterprise, | | | | Of course, you COULD win the lottery. |
| under construction at Scaled Composites' Mohave, | | | | Speaking of lotteries, it has become customary to |
| California facility. Mohave, you will recall, was the site | | | | propose a national spaceflight sweepstakes to put |
| of SpaceShipOne's X-Prize-winning flights. According | | | | ordinary citizens into space on a regular basis. An |
| to the UK's Daily Mail, Kirk turned down the freebie, | | | | editorial in Ad Astra, the magazine of the National |
| saying he didn't want to get space sick, then die in a | | | | Space Society, suggested it again this past January |
| fiery crash with a cloud of vomit hanging over his | | | | (2006). The idea echoed the SpaceShare plan |
| funeral pyre. Picturesque, no? Probably just a | | | | described in Buzz Aldrin's (yes the astronaut) 1996 |
| negotiating ploy. Alien's Sigourney Weaver, however, is | | | | science fiction novel Encounter with Tiber. The idea |
| going on the two-and-a-half-hour flight. | | | | didn't originate with Buzz. In 1991, a Texas company |
| You could become a teacher. Several of the new | | | | called Space Travel Services invited people to |
| suborbital spaceflight companies, working through the | | | | purchase a $2.99 chance for a trip to the Russian Mir |
| Space Frontier Foundation's "Teacher in Space" | | | | space station (no longer existent). Two months later, |
| program, are planning to give away free rides to | | | | the principals were arrested and charged with felony |
| pedagogues. Besides providing great PR and a tax | | | | counts of sponsoring an illegal lottery. The Founding |
| write-off, this marketing strategy gives companies a | | | | Great Grandfathers did a little better. Word has it that |
| direct link to the next generation of space travelers | | | | the First Great Virginia Lottery of 1612 provided half |
| through people they presumably admire and respect. | | | | the budget for the settlers of Jamestown, Virginia -- |
| How about striking for "outer space correspondent"? | | | | the earliest permanent English settlement in America. |
| That was the title given Japanese private cosmonaut | | | | Start small. There are many cheaper alternatives. You |
| Toyohiro Akiyama (48) during his week-long visit to the | | | | can fly to the edge of space on a Russian MIG-25 for |
| (then) Soviet Union's Mir space station in December | | | | about $15,000. You can experience freefall on |
| 1990. The Tokyo Broadcasting System paid a | | | | Zero-G's modified Boeing 727 for $3,750. Any adult, or |
| reported $12 million for the flight. Production costs | | | | a child, can attend the U.S. Space Camp at Huntsville, |
| brought the total to $37 million. As an aside, the | | | | Alabama for as little as $400. |
| Russians rushed a group of Soviet reporters to a | | | | Space exploration is taking off. Aided by the "iron |
| space "bootcamp" after many griped about a | | | | horse" of the American Space Shuttle and the |
| Japanese citizen becoming the first journalist in space. | | | | Russian Soyuz, and all the innovative vehicles of the |
| U.S. efforts to loft a journalist faltered after the 1986 | | | | space tourism industry, outer space is the new Wild |
| Challenger accident, but there's plenty of sentiment for | | | | West. Don't give up your place in history just because |
| trying again to get a wordsmith into orbit. As astronaut | | | | you are not rich. That ticket to space is practically in |
| Story Musgrave has said, we've got to get spaceflight | | | | hand. |