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Check ‘em out, y’all! Lunar shuttle tickets. I got smokin’, non-smokin’, first class, coach, by the window, by the aisle. Lunar shuttte tickets.
Anticipating its pursuit of world domination will be complete sometime during the second quarter of 2010, Google co-founder Sergey Brin has booked a round trip ticket to outer space, with a launch date set for 2011.
Bucking that crazy trend set by NASA in the early 60’s whereby actual qualified astronauts were sent to outer space, Brin, the 34-year-old president of technology for the search-engine company, shelled out a $5 million deposit for a seat aboard a Russian spacecraft, according to tourism company Space Adventures. Brin is scheduled to carry out missions that may include pharmaceutical testing and experiments on computer circuit boards. No word on the specific “pharmaceutical” Brin might be testing.
Total cost of the trip is estimated at more than $35 Million. The two week voyage will orbit the earth about 150 to 200 times. Whoa, I’m getting dizzy just thinking about it.
Brin joins an exclusive club that are using their fortunes for space travel.
“I am a big believer in the exploration and commercial development of the space frontier, and am looking forward to the possibility of going into space,” Brin said in a statement released by Space Adventures.
Brin follows in the steps of both billionaire creator of Microsoft Office software, Charles Simonyi, who paid a relatively modest $25 million in April 2007 for a 10 day joyride to the international space station, and James T. Kirk, Captain of the USS Enterprise.
Google has also sponsored its own space research program, called Google Lunar X Prize, which gives $25 million to the winner of a competition to land an unmanned craft on the moon.
According to Google’s website, “There’s nothing we love more than ambitious research with world-changing potential, and space exploration and research have long produced much of the scientific community’s most ambitious, even audacious work”.
My God Bones, what have they done!
