Space Is The Place

Seattlest isn't exactly rolling in 'N Synch money, but we're pretty convinced that we'll be looking down on the state of Washington from space one day. Yeah, we met a Russian guy the other day who knows a guy who knows a guy and, long story short, he says someone's cousin works for the caterers who pack up the freeze-dried piroshky and could totally get us stowed away in a space box of them. If it comes to that, yeah, we're in. That's not our only plan, though. There are a lot of hometown avenues to try before we buy tickets for Baikonur.

There are suddenly a bunch of rich assholes forward-thinking and well-capitalized assholes in the area that are building space ships. Seriously, it's like space is the new playground for these people. We don't know what's happened to good, old-fashioned money pits like the America's Cup race, and we don't care. Space is the place, baby. Of course, Paul Allen and Vulcan are in the game. We recently got a recounting of the run-up to the X Prize capture from an exVulcanite and apparently they used to watch live feeds of test flights in the mornings like it was Channel One or something. Mr. Allen, we think we could be a great fit for whatever position you have available. South Lake Union Community Liason or anything. Let us in. Amazon.com is playing, too. Amazon head Jeff Bezos, with his Blue Origin group, is trying to build some kind of space complex in Kent right now and if we have to work two full time jobs for the next decade or so -one at Vulcan and one at Amazon.com, well, we're up for it.

Keeping in mind the remote possibility that Paul Allen and Jeff Bezos will leave Seattlest behind when their inter-galactic arks blast off into space, and figuring that the Russian stow-away plan may not as much of a lock as it was presented to us as, we've got a final option. We could always ferry across to Bremerton and hook up with the Liftport guys who are building an elevator to space. Yeah, we'd miss out on all the "tree, dva, odéen, liftoff" excitement of a rocket, but space is space.

The FAA released some space travel guidelines this week that we downloaded immediately and we're just waiting for the office to clear out a bit for the holiday before we send that 120+ page PDF to the laser printer. That's how Seattlest will be spending NYE 2005, by the way: Curled up at home with a case of space champagne and the "Human Space Flight Requirements For Crew and Space Flight Participants."