Galactic Virgin

My index finger hovers over the 'BOOKING' button on the website of Virgin Galactic. My hesitation is justified for many, many reasons but principally because I do not have the $20,000 US as a deposit nor do I have any vague possibility of raising the balance of $180,000 US should there be an opportunity to progress from the stand-by status or what Virgin Galactic call a Voyager Astronaut to the all-fired-up-and- ready-to-go role of Pioneer Astronaut.

The latter is the fully paid up position with a pre-scheduled flight time and therefore a deadline to let as many family members, friends, neighbours, work colleagues and strangers in the street know that you are soon and actually to be elevated to a most exclusive club of those who have been into space. One successful or rather financially able candidate put the one upmanship into context in that out of 6 billion and counting inhabitants on the surface of earth ( as at 10.51am on July 1st 2012) he is looking forward to being one of six such well resourced civilian travellers on the Virgin Galactic Spaceship able to look down and experience whatever feeling there may be linked to that action be it pride, superiority, awe or, with all sincere hope, a bit of humility.

I went through that stage, when considerably younger, of wanting to be an astronaut, specifically a NASA Apollo version. The grainy, and on our TV, black and white images of the moon landings really caught my imagination. As a child at age 7 the nearest I could get to my dream, and at any time subsequently was tipping over the metal climbing frame in the back garden so that it resembled a rocket and particularly so if you squinted through a makeshift lunar helmet made of cardboard and Mother's tin foil.

The astronauts were the household names and heroes of the age and although only perhaps in their late 20's or early 30's they looked much older with their severe crew cuts and smart, sharp uniforms covered in flight badges.

There was a gradual change in the background and qualifications of those selected for the NASA programme from the first intake of all American military to those of a multi-national scientific discipline. I was likely to be neither even with hard work, application and good results. 

I feel therefore a bit aggrieved and envious that it is now possible to buy into that exclusive and illustrious club. My indignation is heightened by the thought of accountants, lawyers, real estate magnates, IT Entrepreneurs and not necessarily the great and the good becoming astronauts and having another form of self promotion with which to bore others around the dinner table or at the country club.

Another reason for not pressing the 'BOOKING' button is the small print or rather the polite smalltalk of the very glossy brochure which can be downloaded from the Virgin Galactic web site. There are apparently social implications in becoming a new style astronaut, not in the rounds of schools and colleges in motivational speaking but in the possibility of being personally invited to the residences of the founder of the Virgin Empire in a selection of world capitals, time zones and environments.

The button, although innocent and unobtrusive, may in fact be a cynical link to establishing credit worthiness, personal wealth, political sympathies and connections in the ruling and elitist echelons of world society. It may even indicate if you are an existing customer of the many tentacled organisation or if not you can expect a broadband sales person to contact you shortly.

Of course, there will be those thrust unwillingly into the project under an obligation to a loved one for what constitutes a very, very generous gift on the occasion of a birthday, anniversary or to mark something personally significant . A bit different to a day at the race track in fast cars or a session of pampering at a health spa.

The composition of the 6 guests per flight could and I would hope be extremely varied. Under the significant stresses both mentally and physically associated with escaping and re-entering the gravitational pull of the earth, Mach 4 travel sickness,  and getting your head around being a distance of up to 361,000 feet above your home,  however much these factors are not mentioned in the brochure, I would hope that lifelong friendships and relationships would be formed for the good of mankind. The true Pioneering spirit may still be found and not in the stubs of a well thumbed cheque book.