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Space

Ask Slashdot: Would You Accept a Free Ride Into Space? 91

Posted by EditorDavid from the come-on-and-take-a-free-ride dept.
How confident are we about the safety of commercial space tourism? Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: It's one thing for Microsoft to boast that they dare to use Outlook instead of Gmail. But it took a whole other level of commitment for Jeff Bezos to join his brother Mark aboard Blue Origin's first passenger-carrying mission in July 2021.

So, while Bezos is unhesitant about sending himself and other celebrities and loved ones into space aboard Blue Origin, how confident are you about the current state of space travel safety?

If offered a free ride into space from Bezos's Blue Origin, or one of the other options like Virgin Galactic, Axiom Space, or Boeing's Starliner, would you accept or decline it?
Share your own thoughts and answers in the comments.

Would you accept a free ride into space?

Ask Slashdot: Would You Accept a Free Ride Into Space? More | Reply

Ask Slashdot: Would You Accept a Free Ride Into Space?

Comments Filter:

  • Free Ride (Score:3)

    by Retired Chemist ( 5039029 ) on Sunday March 02, 2025 @12:39PM (#65205265)
    Not that I am likely to be offered one, but no. It is safer than a trip in a homemade submarine to the wreck of the Titanic, but that is not saying much. Just look at the record for previous trips. Sooner or later, something is going to go wrong, and it is not like you can pull off onto the shoulder of the road to fix it. Even a minor glitch can be fatal when there is no air and no place to get help.

    • It's not only the danger but also the time, as well as how long one has to train for it first. Mark Shuttleworth had to spend many months at Star City first.

      If I want to experience weightlessness, I can always go into a vomit comet instead which takes far less time, and doesn't seem entirely un-fun.

    • It's not just the safety aspect. If a private company offers you a free ride to space the first question I'd have is how much does the trip from space back to Earth cost.

      Call me cynical but the instant that any company today offers anything for "free" I'm not touching it with a barge pole until I can work out how they are making money from it because they definitely are making money somehow and if I have not figured it out I'm likely to get burned by it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by unrtst ( 777550 )

        I'm shocked how many people would say "No" to this offer!

        ... the first question I'd have is how much does the trip from space back to Earth cost.

        IMO, who cares! Never in my lifetime will I have enough wealth to legitimately afford the trip there or back. Send me ASAP and we can work out the details for the return whenever. Statistically, it's not dangerous enough to keep me away.

        • I'm shocked how many people would say "No" to this offer!

          I'm not that surprised. It would definitely be cool to go to space but not so cool that I'd want to be one of the first testing out a new tourist launch vehicle - which realistically is the only chance you have of getting a free trip (assuming it includes the return).

          If you want to get me taking a risk like that then the reward has to be more substantial. Building a colony on Mars with a realistic chance of success then lets talk, but taking a risk just to pop up 100 km and come back down again? Really?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Kisai ( 213879 )

      Only if there is a "I will pay out your survivors 10 million dollars" no-BS life insurance guarantee per passenger. Put your money where your mouth is space-obsessed billionaire weirdos.

      Hell, that should be the standard operating procedure for aircraft. Yes, "flying is safer than cars" generally, but survivability is still zero if an accident takes place once it's wheels aren't on the ground. Nearly every survived aircraft accident (eg Gimli Glider (Air Canada Flight 143) and Delta Connection Flight 4819, b

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      If it was a ride on the Space Shuttle I'd have said yes, because back then it was a fairly exclusive club and mostly based on merit. There was a lot of risk, about a 1 in 100 chance of the thing exploding if you go by the raw numbers, but it was worth it to be a pioneer and do some important science.

      Now it's just rich arseholes, do I really want to be in the same club as Jeff Bezos? A joyride with no real scientific value, a load of pollution so I can get a nice view and 5 minutes of weightlessness?

      • Two comments back to back on pollution.

        New Shepherd runs off hydrogen and oxygen. Two parts hydrogen to one part oxygen.

        There are valid reasons to call water vapor in the upper atmosphere pollution, but it's water vapor.

  • Not interested

  • No thanks (Score:3)

    by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Sunday March 02, 2025 @12:47PM (#65205279) Homepage

    It's only hundreds of thousands of times more dangerous than commercial aviation, so.... mmmmm.... nope.

  • Not sure why anyone thinks it is remarkable for Microsoft to use its own software. Outlook is something like ten times better than Gmail and always has been and other than the effort needed to make Gmail scale to a billion users or more, has had a lot more engineering effort put into it. They can sell it for real money for a reason. That goes for Eudora, Thunderbird, and Netscape Communicator as well. It is also quite a bit easier to make high functioning desktop applications than comparable web applicati

    • Posting to the wrong thread is always better than a free ride to Outlook.

    • The crying clowns that run this shit site cannot go an hour without crying abt big bad Microsoft even if it requires non sequiturs to get there

    • I dunno... the people I run into who think Outlook is great typically don't have much experience with any other email client.

      One would hope that Outlook is decent as a front end for Exchange, of course. But, when using it as a general email client - doing things such as interacting with an IMAP mail server - it doesn't take long for its warts to show.

      Now admittedly if you're comparing it to a web mail client, then sure. But then pretty much all of the surviving desktop email clients are head and shoulders b

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zitchas ( 713512 )

      Gmail has one thing that outlook does not: Sorting.

      Breaking out of the "Each email gets to go in One folder like a piece of physical mail" is just cumbersome and unhelpful. It seems like these days at least half of my emails need to go in more than one category. Being able to label each email with *all* the categories it needs to be in, and then having everything in that category visible when I click on that "folder" was an awesome innovation that I wish could be applied to basically everywhere else I have

  • Is news so slow that we're posting general questions like this? Give me coverage alpha software I'll never use. It's better than this.

  • Blue Origin has not reached crewed orbit! These are just really expensive joy rides for the elites. And their stuff is throw away.
  • All the others, sign me up

  • Sort of (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Sunday March 02, 2025 @12:55PM (#65205291)

    A suborbital trip or even a full-blown ride to LEO just isn't worth it when there is a much, much less expensive, safer, and more comfortable option that will give you an experience where you can't tell the difference from actually being in space.

    You can get the experience without riding rocket, without freefall making you nauseous, and without having to go through the dangers of reentry and splashdown.

    You can ride in a pressurized gondola lifted by a huge high altitude balloon. You will feel 1g of gravity for the entire trip, and you will go high enough to see the curvature of space and to your eyes you will appear to be above the atmosphere. No, you will not technically be in space, but your eyes won't care. Everything that is noticeably different about the experience will be an improvement over actually going to space.

    • ... in this hypothetical scenario, you pay full-price for the balloon ride.

      Free, riskier, and more bone-shaking vs. expensive, less risky, and close-to-1-g-the-whole-time?

      For people who can't afford the balloon flight, it might as well not be an option, at least not for this hypothetical scenario.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Misagon ( 1135 )

      Another option would be by special air plane. The Lockheed U-2 (spy plane) for instance, can reach 70'000 feet where you can see the curvature of the Earth and the darkness of space. The U-2 is a single-engine jet aircraft.

      Adam Savage got to be on such a flight in an episode of Mythbusters.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • My response to this is the same as the response to the memes about would you live in this cabin/castle/cave/hideaway/blimp/treefort/etc for a million/hundred million/billion dollars/pounds/quatloos, unless you have the cabin/castle/cave/hideaway/blimp/treefort/etc and the dollars/pounds/quatloos, fuck right off.

  • I worked for a company for several years that did work for Nasa. I thought about going into space and how that could be accomplished. But what threw water on my dream was how small the living space is in spacecraft. I'm a little claustrophobic (they have to drug me to get me into one of those imaging machines) and I do not want to be the guy who freaks out on the mission.

    • Agreed. My one try at scuba diving cured me of any desire to enter an environment where I have no control over the basic necessities for staying alive minute to minute. Maybe with years of training and working up to it step by step, but at 70 that's not going to happen.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ffkom ( 3519199 )
        While I like scuba diving a lot, I would certainly not go on a "free ride to space". There are lots of interesting and beautiful things to see in many locations where people go scuba diving. On the "free space ride", all you get to see is the usual "external view of earth", which I honestly find not that interesting, given how underwhelming I found the view from plane windows to be. And in the "outward from earth" direction, one still needs a powerful telescope with long exposure times to see anything other

      • I used to be claustrophobic as a kid, but during my teenage years figured out a little mental trick on my own:

        Stop. Think. Notice that you're not seeing fireworks in your eyes. Nothing is actively fading to black (the fireworks always come first, by the way, just how your retina works.) Until you do, you're not going to begin to asphyxiate for at least a few more minutes, plenty of time to do something about it.

        Everything is fine, you're panicking over literally nothing.

        Eventually you get to the point where

  • If offered a free ride into space from Bezos's Blue Origin, or one of the other options like Virgin Galactic, Axiom Space, or Boeing's Starliner

    Any reason SpaceX's Crew Dragon 2 isn't listed? You know, the one that is actually taking people into orbit and to the ISS (and bringing them back) on a regular basis?

    • I just don't think SpaceX is pursuing a "space tourism" business model at this time and really they don't have to, they have enough launches to consume resources for the foreseeable future and as we can see it's a bit of a crowded market without a real established business case. They had some touristy jobs, there was "Dear Moon" but those are more like special one-off's.

  • There are plenty of people who should be launched into space, just without any need for one of those returny rockets.

  • ...and I mean disclosed in full, no sugar coating, no slick sales pitch clouding your decision - then sure, let people choose. Rocket science is not a solved problem, we are getting better but it is not a done deal. It is a best effort endevour, participate at your own risk.

  • Yes (Score:2)

    by jrnvk ( 4197967 )

    But my life insurance provider will probably drop my policy.

  • I view BO's (heh) New Shepard as roughly on par with the risk of everyday commercial air flight. Some factors increase risk, while others (like the fact that the entire spacecraft is thoroughly checked out between flights and telemetered to heck and back) reduce risk. So overall I think it's probably a wash.

    It goes straight up and comes straight back down. Atmospheric re-entry heating is a fraction of that of an orbital re-entry.

    The capsule is aerodynamically stable on re-entry. The part that should point f

  • It would be awesome, and worth the risk.
  • I would accept a free ride into space from all of them except Space-X. At least not while their pedo-nazi ceo is still charge.

  • Don't want to pay the gift tax on that free ride!

  • On a SpaceX rocket, yes.

    On Blue Origin? No.

    SpaceX simply has a longer track record of success.

    After maybe 20 error-free Blue Origin launches with people, and knowing they had a well tested passenger eject system, I would go for it.

    • SpaceX simply has a longer track record of success.

      Only because it's been subject to safety regulations - given with how various ongoing government agencies are being gutted, by the owner of SpaceX, I don't think they'll have much of a track record in the near future.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by evanh ( 627108 )

      I'd flip that around and say that as long as it's new they're still trying hard to make it work. One lose of life would ruin Blue Origin. SpaceX on the other hand would brush it off as a 1-in-10000 incident, rockets aren't perfect.

      • I'd flip that around and say that as long as it's new they're still trying hard to make it work.

        Dude this is not a restaurant that is just opening up that I go to help them out.

        This is a freaking ROCKET going into space, it doesn't matter at all how hard they are "trying", all that matters is proven repeated success. One small failure can lead to disaster. Only when launches start to get boring does my own personal fear dissipate. I guess that's why I'm not a test pilot.

        I forgot to mention that the other

  • Depends ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Sunday March 02, 2025 @02:05PM (#65205413)

    Would You Accept a Free Ride Into Space?

    How much is the return trip? 'Cause they kinda got you once you're up there ... Also, am leery about air-travel deals nowadays, with all the hidden fees. Any extra charges for oxygen, checked-bag, food/water, etc ... Would it be in Starliner and would there be an extra charge for it working correctly?

  • Would. (Score:3)

    by SlashbotAgent ( 6477336 ) on Sunday March 02, 2025 @02:19PM (#65205431)

    I would accept such a free ride.

    Would I be shit my pants scared all the way to back on the ground? Definitely. But I would go.

    Also, I don't feel like the Bezos extra high plane ride actually counts as space. Space-X or Starliner are true space, to me.

    • The Blue Origin thing is space, just not orbit. I would go in any of them after I see 100 successes in a row with the vehicle. I'd still be aware that the risks are orders of magnitude higher than most other earthly travel. but I would still go.
  • I'm not interested. Now, if I were offered a first-class round-trip ticket to Australia or New Zealand, I'd gladly accept that. While a trip to space is reasonably safe, I'm just not interested in going. And if it were on a billionaire spaceship, it would be a marketing opportunity for them, so even more so adamantly no.

  • ...is there a compelling reason for you to want to go into space?

    Because that's probably the first question I would ask myself and then never get to the headline question. That's because the answer to the first question is currently "no." It doesn't matter if it's "free." The headline almost sounds like something I would say to an annoying (or even spacey) co-worker.

    I'll go to Sedona, AZ or Mardi Gras instead, TYVM.

  • ...I have plenty life left to live, so not currently, but when I'm older and have less to lose, maybe...

    However, it takes a surprisingly long time to get up there, and get back down, the amount of time you are there is limited, that ratio from an entertainment perspective is not as good as other forms of entertainment.
    Amusement parks provide the G-force sensations.
    Underwater sex provides the buoyant sexual experience.
    Virtual reality displays provide the visual experience and the more aesthetic/impressive vi

  • I'm in my early 40s with two young kids, and that alone rules out various activities such as space travel, helicopter rides, bungee jumping and parachuting etc.

    If I make it another 40 years and everyone's grown up then sure, why not? I'd happily risk going out with a bang if it meant I got to experience space travel.

  • Not only would I accept it, I would do so even if it were a one way trip.

  • Space travel is the safest form of transport measured by deaths per km

    It is the most dangerous form of transport measured by deaths per trip.

    Air travel has a less extreme but similar skew to its statistics.

  • I wouldn't accept an entire rocket from Bezos or Musk.

    If you can't treat other people well and can't allow free editorial expression you're just a scumbag.

  • I'm not sure that rockets are ever going to become much safer than they are today.

    I'd like to got to space for sure, and doubt it'll ever be affordable for a normal person in my lifetime. I'd probably be willing to pay $100K max to go. A free trip would be nice.

    Where and when is another question though. Given the risk, the reward has to be worthwhile, and Blue Origin doesn't really seem worth it - could have a much safer MiG flight to the edge of space and see a similar view. A week on the ISS would be wort

  • - Would I accept a free ride to almost-space (Blue Origin) for a few minutes? No.

    - Would I accept a free trip to - and stay in - the International Space Station? Probably not, but I'm open to the idea.

    - If friendly aliens came to Earth and offered me a chance to travel with them through deep space? Oh, yeah - in a heartbeat!

  • My high school history teacher was a runner-up to teachers in space (Yes, this one [wikipedia.org]) he trained with the crew. He was very proud of his time with NASA - he gave many many lectures to students across the state about his NASA experience. One of his most asked questions was do you still want to go? The answer until his dying day was always YES - he would have gone on Challenger knowing what he knew after even

  • eBay (Score:2)

    by kackle ( 910159 )
    I would if I could sell my seat!

  • I have heard that those in space end up with a different perspective of the world by the time they get back.

    First off:
    1. Science isn't free. It always costs something to get results.
    2. Life isn't fair, but spending your life avoiding death will make you miss out on life-changing events that can help shape who you are and how you react to the world around you. It can be lifechanging to go on this that could alter either a deficiency in your thinking, or even make you more successful and driven to advance wh

  • I would accept a multi-day orbital flight, as was done on SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission.

    But this quick trip on a rocket...no thank you.

    I'd rather do a combo of
    Vomet Comet https://www.gozerog.com/ [gozerog.com] $10k
    Mig 29 Edge of space https://migflug.com/flights-pr... [migflug.com] ( availability pending USA's capitulation to the Soviet Union )

    Would also pay for a ride-along with this guy https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • There's no reason to shoot me into space. I can think of a few other people who need a free ride.

  • Blue Origin little rocket - No, because even when it is free, straight up and down is lame. Fantastic design for what it does though.

    Virgin Galactic - No, because while I love the design, it is inherently too delicate and prone to failure.

    Boeing Starliner - Hard No ... because they just can't seem to get it right.

    SpaceX Crewdragon - Sure. It is both well designed and nice.

    Russian Soyuz - No. Not only is it cramped, but it really isn't designed for tourism...windows...etc.. It is a legacy craft from a ve

  • Jeff Bezos has been to space in his own New Shepard

    Richard Branson has been to space in his own VSS Unity

    NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has been to orbit in a SpaceX Crew Dragon

    Elon Musk has never been higher than his corporate jet flies (drugs notwithstanding)

    The current and previous CEOs of Boeing have never ridden in Starliner

    The director of Roscosmos has never ridden in a Soyuz capsule

    If their trust their own spacecrafts is too low to expose their own lives to the possibility of trouble, my trust in

  • If it's successful, it's the experience of a lifetime.

    If it's not successful, it's still the experience of a lifetime. Just a somewhat shorter one.

    Where do I sign?

    ...laura

  • To me "space" is a momentum state, not an arbitrary altitude. Its easy to get to 100km or whatever, the interesting part is actually getting to orbit. Just going high up isn't interesting enough to be worth the risk to me. If they offer a trip to orbit for an amount I can afford, I'm in.

  • Wanted to put a man with AIDS on the moon. I would volunteer to be the first man with HIV in orbit. But very doubtful I could pass the physical as I have been quite sick the last few months, and barging every other day here on earth. Who knows what would happen in space.

  • Yes, and I'll sign any waver presented to do so.

  • I'd go in a second. It won't happen, unfortunately.

  • Yes, just not in V-2025FH.

  • Firstly, yes, I want to go to space. Definitely.

    But I want to go to space to achieve something. Going just to spend a few minutes being a tourist has a very low value to me, and would have to be commensurately extremely low risk for me to do it.

    If I had the opportunity to do something pioneering, or do some really valuable science... Yes, I definitely would like to say "Yes."

    But there's no blanket statements. It depends on the spaceship, the company, the crew I'm going with, the mission.... I have to be OK

  • It was my dream when I was a kid and grew up watching Sagan's Cosmos on TV. I'm 48 and already have kids. If I had the chance to go to space, or the Moon, or even Mars (despite requiring more than a year)... I'd probably take it without thinking too much: If I knew that my family would be taken care of should something go wrong, the only possible reply for me would be "Eff Yeah!".
  • Nothing from Jeff "No Backbone" Bezos.

  • Nah, I'm good. Already in space. I wonder if they meant outer space.

  • I'm curious why you aren't mentioning SpaceX as one of the choices, because it's the only one of the group I choose if I was FORCED to take a ride. The only non biased reason I thought of was maybe they don't offer commercial options, where the others do. I don't follow them all enough to know.

    It's all based on who has a track record. Nothing to do with Elon. I'm going with the one who's put up a ton of flights and got them down safely. All of them? no. But they haven't had anyone die or stuck in spa

  • I like places with warm air.

  • I'm a bit of a trill seeker at heart, and don't mind a little danger even in day to day life. I like riding motorcycles, or even bicycles, in city traffic, though it's not the busiest or most dangerous city, to be certain.

    Would I ride in Bezos cock-hopper? Probably not. Virgin Atlantic? Hell to the no. About the only one I'd consider at this point is Dragon because it's been tested more than any of the other options. That seems to strike my version of balance between risk/survivability. The other options av

  • Then I'd consider it - otherwise heck no!

  • Yes. (Score:2)

    by whitroth ( 9367 )

    As the old saying by astronauts goes, you climb on top of a giant bomb, strap yourself in, and light it off.

    If there was a good chance I'd get up there, hell, yes. We expected this by 2001...

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