Let me ask y’all a question: Can a man have too much money? It seems like there are a mess of billionaires out there who have more money than they know what to do with. Some of them buy several mansions scattered around the world, while a few go out and buy their own island. Some buy worthless paintings, some that look like my 3-year old granddaughter painted it while blindfolded. And then there is one fella with more money than sense who just bought a seat on Jeff Bezos’ New Shepherd rocket for $28 million dollars.
The ride on the spacecraft sounds exciting, but my understanding is the trip into space will last only 11 minutes or so, depending on traffic. I’m no mathematician, but that’s about $42,000 per second to ride around in a tin can. Personally, I can find less expensive ways to travel. I can pay just $30 at Six Flags to get on a ride that will send me hurtling through the sky for 10 minutes, and I’m pretty sure I’ll return to terra firma in good shape. Now that passenger behind me may need to wash my partially digested chili dog off his face, but at least gravity would keep my lunch from floating around fellow rocketeers for an 11-minute flight.
I don’t know if the entire space fight is 11 minutes or that’s the amount of time you’re out in orbit. The blast-off is probably pretty dang fast, and re-entry can be fast if the brakes are faulty like those on my old truck. So what do you do for 10 minutes or so up in space? Not enough time to watch a show on Netflix. And I bet the Wi-Fi is sketchy up there. I reckon you can take some selfies while floating around in a vomit-filled space capsule.
