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Round Trip To Mars - What If They Charge You By Your Weight?
He was diving into the whole class warfare issue, and how that divide was making things tough on us, and creating a huge misunderstanding amongst populations of the world.
In his story he had noted that only the rich people could afford a trip to Mars, and poor people would be "trapped on Earth" and unable to make such a journey, take a vacation, or travel to that other world.
Now then, is he right? Is he correctly predicting that future? Currently, it appears so because only people who have wealth can afford private space flight, going into orbit, or have the spendable income to put down a deposit so they can get on a list for future trips from private space companies operating out of their own spaceports.
Although his novel is cast into the future past the year 2100, much of what he's saying exists today, and will completely exist in next couple of decades.
Let me give you a case in point.
MIT Technology Review had an interesting article recently titled; "Two Tickets to the Moon: Yours for Just $1.
5 Billion," by Antonio Regalado on December 5, 2012 which stated in the teaser; "Several ex-NASA officials are behind a company that plans to offer trips by 2020.
" Well, apparently $1.
5 billion is a lot of money, and that's before we have hyperinflation from all the spending our government is doing without reserve currency.
In essence we are inflating the entire world, so they will have to deal with it later.
But in real money in today's terms, $1.
5 billion is well out of the realm of possibility for even the top 1%, it's more in line with the top 1/1000 of 1% of our population.
You see that point? Of course, consider if you will that the reason it costs so much is due to the weight of all life-support systems and the amount of energy, a.
k.
a.
fuel to get out of Earth's orbit (gravity dwell).
It costs X amount of dollars to take X amount of pounds from Earth to Mars and then back again.
Therefore, someone who is perhaps only 5' 4" should be cheaper to fly there and back than someone who is 6 foot tall, and 240 pounds.
Big people eat more, they weigh more, and therefore they should pay more - right? Well, that may not seem politically correct because they've tried it at the airline, and they've had people try to file lawsuits, but there is a substantial basis for this when it comes to the laws of physics.
Should private space flight charge you by your weight? I would submit to you that they should.
Nevertheless, I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.
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