What would you choose???

[CrazyCarl]

Was watching a video with my wife a few days ago and an interesting but silly question surfaced...

If someone offered you two free options...

A) A magic plane ticket to travel anywhere in the world for the rest of your life or...

B) A one week trip into space (maybe orbiting the earth)...

Which one would you choose?

CC

[Nick in PRC.]

I'm sick of flying................and all the extra "security". Bags are now being checked going on the metro here in Shanghai. I'm ready to move.

Probably take the space trip...........bummer would be coming back to earth.

[Linger]

Because there are still lots of places I haven't been to, I'd like to see our planet more. It'll be even nicer if I can just go without all the 'security' checks!

L

[CrazyCarl]

Exploding into space is where it's at!

The earth can be out of this world too but I'd rather be riding my motorcycle when I see it.

CC

[volksjagger]

gotta be the free ticket to fly anywhere. i want to orbit the earth but that will be available around 2020 or so for regular travel. as the new planes are going to be flying just inside the earths atmosphere kinda like the u2, blackbird and this mig-25!



looks like in outer space. but still has air to run the engines.

in addition to the private space travel industry trying to improve on an inefficient government model.

looks to be sooner rather than later.

http://www.xcor.com/press-releases/2...l_vehicle.html

i want to float around in 0 gravity though. that’s where it's at!

[Just Charlie]

I'd go for the life long plane ticket.

For me a life long exploration of human culture and civilization would be more fulfilling than a week long trip isolated in space in either a space suit or shuttle with nothing to really interact with. Although a trip orbiting the earth would be incredible, the only sense aside from anti gravity (which would be great fun even confined in a tiny ship) would be visual. You don't find fruits you can't identify or hear languages you can't speak in space and the innumberable forms of life and activity on earth make it more interesting to me. Earth is an explosion of life and organic activity whereas space is defined by its lack of these phenomena.

[CrazyCarl]

I'd go for the life long plane ticket.
... Earth is an explosion of life and organic activity whereas space is defined by its lack of these phenomena.

No doubt the Earth is beautiful but the universe is probably the largest single living organic thing there is - it IS the phenomena.

I hear the Aurora Borrealis is nice this time of year.

- Photo taken from the Int'l Space Station -




CC

[Just Charlie]

No doubt the Earth is beautiful but the universe is probably the largest single living organic thing there is - it IS the phenomena.

As far as we can see (very close to the ends of the universe), earth is the only planet with life. Using special equipment on the Hubble cosmologists have detected organic molecules in comets which are made of carbon, building block of life on earth, but even the detection of these molecules doesn't mean that life exists there yet or ever will. Even if organic material exists on a molecular level it doesn't affect my point that there's nothing to interact with in space.

Earth is the phenomena. Cosmologists predict that there could be other planets which have similar conditions to earth but the chance of intelligent life is 0.01 percent in each instance (we have found 100+ extra solar planets). Our orbit is in the Goldilocks zone - not too hot, not too cold, just right - plus naturally occurring liquid water. The combination of these elements is stunningly uncommon.

We can observe conditions within the universe and discuss those celestial events with context, but no such context on how the universe fits into whatever larger pieces there are exists.