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Gates to join Simonyi in Space?

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wed Apr 11, 2007 07:24 AM
from the gain-some-perspective dept.
Space Microsoft
gadgetopia writes "On Russian state television, cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin tells journalists in a live video interview from the ISS that "Charles said that Bill Gates is also preparing to visit space"." Gotta wonder what that insurance premium is going to look like.
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  • why did TFS look like

    "On Russian state television, cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin tells journalists in a live video interview from the ISS that "Charles said that a href="http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/11258/ 1066/">Bill Gates is also preparing to visit space"."

    could it be because some one missed a "" and no one seemed to notice... come on editors! its a work day after all...
    • From TFS:

      "Charles said that a Bill Gates is also preparing to visit space"."


      I like that it's A Bill Gates. Makes me wonder if it's THE Bill Gates. Maybe this isn't such a big story after all.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Combuchan (123208)
        5 replies (and i'm sure there will be more) about a stupid typo, and none about the simple typo tag that you can use to notify the editors of the problem...

        Gates in space? Yikes. If he decides to move his fortune and monopoly power from Windows to space travel, I'll never get there in my lifetime! :(

          • Ahem, just because we got one front page story tagged "insovlietrussia", it doesn't mean we should all revert to making a million old jokes over and over again.

            They aren't funny anymore. Really.

            ... which is why, in Soviet Russia, joke MAKE you laugh!

  • Where to donate... (Score:5, Funny)

    by nschubach (922175) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @07:28AM (#18687449) Journal
    Where can we donate to the "Leave Bill on the Moon" cause?
    • Well, I don't know about that, but I'm sure a few rogue organizations and governments out there would accept donations in exchange for a few items that would effectively accomplish the same purpose, should he actually enter orbit.

      Not that I approve of something like that.

      <_<

      >_>
    • Send $20 via PayPal to morgan_greywolf (at) yahoo (dot) com

    • Re:Where to donate... (Score:5, Funny)

      by nschubach (922175) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @08:10AM (#18687859) Journal
      Putting more thought into it....

      I think it would be even better to put all that money into a new paint job for the shuttle. Cover the shuttle till right before launch. Get Bill strapped in and ready. Setup a monitor inside so he can see the revealing and right before launch, unveil a shuttle painted like a huge Tux.
    • I can see it now, <newEnglandAccent>"Ask NOT what your PC can do for you, but what can you pay to keep using your PC..."<newEnglandAccent /> I know it is out of context of President Kennedy's inaugural address, but I am thinking of the follow on statement of, <newEnglandAccent>"I intend to distribute Vista 2.0, using the IPV6, from a permanent Moon Base at the its South Pole within ten years."<newEnglandAccent /> Now; He, who's name is ignored; Has got my attention.

  • Missing something (Score:5, Funny)

    by ThePolkapunk (826529) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @07:30AM (#18687467) Homepage
    Looks like you're missing an anchor tag there. I highly recommend it. They're great for linking!
     
    Oh wait, this is a story about Bill Gates. Is this a joke about how IE doesn't follow w3 standards for HTML? If so, it's not that funny.

  • Weird (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 11 2007, @07:33AM (#18687495)

    Charles said that a href="http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/11258/ 1066/
    A really odd thing for Charles to say. How do you pronounce "href", anyway? :)

    On a more serious note, however, the Slashdot editting have reached a new low.

  • Watch Bill sweat... (Score:5, Funny)

    by pandrijeczko (588093) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @07:33AM (#18687501)
    ...as he sits there in his spacesuit in his capsule next to the Russian cosmonaut commander as "Soyuz 12 - Powered by Windows Vista" flashes up on the main control screen just before the primary engine ignition sequence...

  • Yeah, quadruple indirection! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by qazsedcft (911254) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @07:35AM (#18687521)
    Slashdot provides a link to what Fyodor Yurchikhin said about what Charles Simonyi said about what Bill Gates supposedly intends to do.
  • Anyone heard whether Steve Ballmer is thinking of taking the trip too ?

  • Insurance (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Antibore (254528) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @07:39AM (#18687561)
    Why would Gates even have insurance, it's not like he needs one with that wealth.

  • Great, let's hope he stays there. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 11 2007, @07:42AM (#18687585)
    Reminds me of an old Ukrainian joke how when Gagarin went into space some guy announced that Russians have gone into space to which the auditory hopefuly asked if all of them and was greatly disapointed to learn that only one.

  • Lots of jokes, but... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Aladrin (926209) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @07:49AM (#18687657)
    Joking aside, I wonder exactly what would change should Gates not make it back to the Earth?

    Would his empire fall, or would his second-in-command just jump into his chair and everything continues as usual?

    Would there be a slew of 'secret' things suddenly appear? Would these secrets hurt or help the business? I could see it going either way... Secret projects would probably boost the company as speculation about them flooded the news, but secrets about Gates' personal life would do the opposite, I think.

    I'm pretty sure MS stock would plunge, so not much speculation there.

    Personally, I think we'd be worse off as Gates is sort of held personally accountable for everything Microsoft does, and I think he has a conscience. But if someone else took his place, there would be less personal influence and it'd be the company rampaging out of control. Short term horror, at least... Long term, it'd tear the company apart and be a blessing. But then, everything dies in the long term.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by FredDC (1048502)
      I don't think the impact would be that big for Microsoft. Sure there will probably be a momentary drop of Microsoft stock value, but that won't last long because Microsoft will ensure investors Bill wasn't really that important to the company. Which is true, a large company like microsoft doesn't depend on just one person, everyone is expendable! Even Bill...

      I'm more worried about what would happen to commercialized space travel if such an event would occur. I think it could set back the entire idea by a h
    • I bet the fact that if it's true that he's headed there, I wonder if M$ stocks take a hit.

    • Re:Lots of jokes, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hey! (33014) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @08:45AM (#18688289) Homepage Journal
      It's already fallen.

      Like Andrew Carnegie, Gates is like a bear who went over the mountain, saw another mountain, and being somewhat smarter than the average bear had a shrewd guess about what he'd find on the other side of that mountain.

      We're in the post-Gates era of Microsoft now. If he wanted to be back in charge, he could be, but he's onto phase II of his career, which is not about Microsoft. There'd be no ego gratification, no fun in maintaining the status quo. So he's on to changing the world. It's not an unheard of late career move for the evil genius who has no Sherlock Holmes against whom he can test his mettle. If Spassky hit his mid career, and found the only people left to challenge him played chess like me, he'd have taken up crochet instead.

      What would you do if you had to be Bill Gates, not for day, but every day for, say, the next forty or fifty years? You'd want to do something pretty damned amazing with your life, not only amazing, but amazing compared to what you did with the first half of your life.

      Now you have Microsoft, which is built around Bill Gates ego, except Bill Gates' ego is on to bigger and better things. They're a ghost of their former selves. Seriously, the old Microsoft would not have been humiliated by a startup whose motto was "do no evil". Google would have been crushed or coopted. Crushed and coopted more likely, in whatever order suited Bill Gates master plan best.

      I think we can expect better things from both Gates and Microsoft in the coming years than we've seen from them yet, but the transition is going to be painful for people who are overinvested in Microsoft. Overinvested in more ways than money.

      So, overall, I think people, even Microsoft haters, ought to be rooting for Gates to make it back to the Earth.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by hey! (33014)
          I don't deny Gates and MS have a mutually beneficial relationship.

          What I'm saying is that MS is in the position that the Armies of Darkness at the end of a cliche high fantasy novel: once welded into a mighty instrument of hellish terror by the diabolical iron will of the Dark Lord, now bereft of that will they have fallen into pitiable disarray.

          Only in this case the Dark Lord hasn't been banished into the nether dimensions, he's just decided that Evil is no fun if the Forces of Light don't but up a decent

  • No way. He wont do it. (Score:5, Funny)

    by 140Mandak262Jamuna (970587) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @07:53AM (#18687687) Journal
    Gates would go to orbit only if Steve Jobs goes there first. He would not understand why Steve went, but just to be sure he has would not be blind sided like he was with iPod, he would go there.

  • semantics (Score:3, Funny)

    by Ajehals (947354) <andyhalsall@NOspAm.ictsc.com> on Wednesday April 11 2007, @07:56AM (#18687715) Homepage Journal
    Gates in space? Is that "SpaceLikeWord95" or "SpaceLikeOnASoyuz"?
  • Guess this explains why Gates declined that grassroots group's pleadings that he run for president: Imagine all those Secret Service agents crammed into the space station.

    http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/ 08/1749210 [slashdot.org]

  • What happens if Bill's spacesuit leaks... (Score:5, Funny)

    by pandrijeczko (588093) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @08:02AM (#18687773)
    ...and he has to wait three months for a patch to fix it?
  • ...to recreate historical events [bbc.co.uk], I think Ballmer ought to be the one to go, rather than Gates.
  • While marketing Windows Vista Super Ultimate Galactic Edition, Bill Gates was accidentally left at the ISS. Provisions are limited however NASA officials claim Gates will be able to live off a steady diet of old ASP.NET books until a rescue crew arrives.
  • I'd be so into this were he willing to go into space if his craft and mission computers were all running off-the-shelf Vista. Let's see how much faith he really has in his flagship product...
  • Q. What's the difference between a suppository for constipation relief and Bill Gates?

    A. One's a shit in a capsule... the other relieves constipation.

  • Just where is the Great Flaming Asteroid of Doom when you really need it?

    On the other hand, maybe the current "high" in sunspot activities [slashdot.org] will lead to a dramatic solar flare ("sun burps"), with the resultant high velocity expulsion of partially digested, beryllium-infused, greenish-tinted solar matter ("sun vomit" [everything2.com]). This material and the associated cosmic rays will engulf the international space station and cause strange genetic mutations to the inhabitants. When they return to earth they will each have

  • All that goodwill he had gained with his beloved foundation will be undone if he is seen spending his earnings from the windos tax on frivolities like this one. So I expect an ex(t|p)ensive PR campaign that will emphasise all the good Billyboy is doing with his windos loot, like giving away free copies of his coolaid OS to vulnerable countries (in exchange for a crackdown on OS piracy).

    Maybe BabyBush was thinking about this opportunity when he reinstated the missile defense system.

  • Countdown (Score:5, Funny)

    by Moggyboy (949119) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @08:29AM (#18688075)
    "Houston to Bill, Houston to Bill, do you read Bill?"
    "Loud and clear Houston. Go ahead."
    "Bill, we're all go here. We just need you to push the big red button in front of you."
    "OK Houston, I'm pushing the button, and... huh?"
    "What is it Bill?"
    "This big window just popped up saying 'You do not have privileges to access applications Orbit and Space.' Oh, now the whole screen's gone blue. Is that normal Houston?"

    • Re:Countdown (Score:5, Funny)

      by maxwell demon (590494) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @09:57AM (#18689219) Journal
      When Bill Gates is on the ISS and wants to go back:
      "Huston, I have a problem."
      "What's your problem, Bill?"
      "I tried to get back to earth, but this damned space ship won't start."
      "You can't get back now."
      "Why not?"
      "You only bought the Space Basic license to get into space."
      "And that means?"
      "The Space Basic license doesn't include the license to return to earth."
      "Ehm ... but I want to return to earth!"
      "Well, no problem. You just have to upgrade your license to Space Premium. Or to Space Ultimate."
      "What's the difference?"
      "Space Ultimate also gives you the license to return to earth alive."
      "Ok, I'll take space ultimate."
      "Fine. The money will be drawn from your bank account. Of course you have to register."
      "Ok ... well, it says I cannot upgrade, because Space Genuine Advantage determined an invalid license."
      "Well, of course you have to have a valid Space Basic or Space Premium license to upgrade."
      "But I do have a valid license. Isn't there a way to circumvent SGA?"
      "Of course not. We certainly have to make sure that only people with valid licenses enter the ISS."
      "But I am already on the ISS."
      "So you must be a space pirate. Sorry, but we don't support space pirates."

  • Pies Please (Score:3, Funny)

    by JMandingo (325160) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @08:38AM (#18688191) Homepage
    It would be GOLD one of the cosmonauts would pie him in the face as soon as he came through the airlock. GOLD.

    What a mess, though.

  • And in a perfectly timed manoever... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pandrijeczko (588093) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @09:02AM (#18688475)
    ...50,000,000 geeks along the Eastern seaboard of the United States simultaneously switched on and off their home lighting to spell "Linux Rocks" in illuminated 500 mile high letters as Mr Gates passed overhead in the Soyuz 15 spacecraft...

  • I hear the Vista is amazing from 100 miles up (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Viol8 (599362) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @09:46AM (#18689059)
    Lets just hope Bill has a lovely XPerience and doesn't crash into the Blue Ocean of Death.

  • Change Guidance System to Microsoft Windows (Score:3, Funny)

    by MrSteveSD (801820) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @10:35AM (#18689843)
    I feel that if Bill Gates does travel into space, the guidance system of the vehicle he travels in should be changed over to run on Microsoft Windows in his honour.

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