From a Washington Post column by Alexandra Petri headlined “Some one-star Yelp reviews of space travel from the near future”:
Great, space travel is being expanded to the super wealthy! Instead of people who have trained and dreamed for years about becoming astronauts, sent to space to represent the whole planet and conduct scientific research, now anyone (for whom the price of a house is chicken feed) can go to space! Great! One small step backward for man, one giant leap forward for the Rich Kids of Instagram!
Here is what I assume the one-star Yelp reviews for suborbital space travel will look like in a few years.
★ It was fine I guess but for the same amount of money you can shoot an endangered wolf from a helicopter and to me that’s more fun.
★ No gift shop!
★ Captain got mad when I wanted to enter the cockpit to take a picture with him.
★ For what it costs it’s fine but the seats were tiny. I used it as an opportunity to imagine what it would be like if I ever flew commercial!
★ Way better views of Earth from Earth.
★ Wouldn’t let me drive it even though that would have looked a lot cooler in the souvenir photo.
★ Should have gotten a Lamborghini instead 🙁
★ Earth looked really small and vulnerable and I couldn’t see any of my parents’ 18 houses.
★ After a while, it was kind of like … we get it, Earth’s a small blue marble floating in the void of space. No bottle service, either.
★ Poor cell reception.
★ Wouldn’t let us get out and didn’t even visit any other planets.
★ Thought I was getting a yacht but my dad got us this trip instead. No onboard pool and I felt like a fool showing up in a bathing suit.
★ Try to avoid the free riders. Totally worth it to say you’ve done space, but try to avoid the flights that include people who won a free trip; mine had two of them, and they had their faces pressed up against the glass the whole time saying, “Wow!” and “It looks so small!” and “Can you believe this, can you believe we’re here?” and “We’re so lucky to be alive right now!” and they both started to cry and got too emotional to take a picture of me even though I asked nicely, and it was like, get it together. I might try to go a second time just to see what it’s like without them being so distracting. Probably not worth a third, though.
Alexandra Petri is a Washington Post columnist offering a lighter take on the news and opinions of the day. She is the author of the new essay collection “Nothing Is Wrong And Here Is Why.”
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