Before I die

[stephbg]

I would like to touch a tiger before I die. Not just before I die, but it's something I'd really really like to do. I'll be in Brisbane in December for a family wedding, so I looked up the Dreamworld tiger experiences. Would I pay $495 to touch a tiger*? Yes I would. I have e-mailed my first enquiry.

Tell me flist et al, what's on your BID list?

(*) For that money they also throw in a professional photographer. I wonder if they cut him up into little pieces first?

Comments

[krjalk.livejournal.com]

I would like to travel into space.

Not necessarily to the Moon, or even into orbit, though I won't say no in the extremely unlikely event the opportunity to do either of those things presents itself. I'd be satisfied with a 15-minute suborbital hop on one of the space tourism vehicles that will become available in the next couple of years. They'll start out quite expensive, over $100,000 or so, but by the time I can afford to blow money on wish fulfillment it may not cost more than a plane ticket to London does nowadays.

If I thought Merete wouldn't chloroform me in order to stop me, I'd like a ride on one of these puppies.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

I have to be honest, going into space is one of mine too. I think high enough that I can experience genuine zero gravity - however high up that is, that's my target.

I don't think I'd have the patient to go to another planet, unless they develop *extremely* fast and cheap space travel in my lifetime. If *that* happens - Mars, baby.

[krjalk.livejournal.com]

"Zero gravity" has nothing to do with how high you go - gravity drops off by the inverse square of the distance from the center of the Earth, so being at an altitude of 350 km, roughly the same as the International Space Station, means that gravity is still at about 90% of the force we feel here on the surface. It's what keeps the ISS and satellites in orbit, after all, rather than flying off into deep space.

Zero g has to do with acceleration _ for example, if an elevator's cable is cut and it accelerates towards the ground, all objects inside the lift are accelerating at the same rate as the lift itself and thus are not pressed down against the lift floor, and are free to float around. Briefly, before the sickening thud. Objects in orbit are in "free fall" - that is, they are falling towards the ground, but their sideways motion means they always miss, and are thus permanently falling, thus the contents don't feel accelerated and are all floaty. If you were standing on a 350km tall tower, and thus stationary relative to the ground rather than free falling in orbit around it, you would feel that 90% of regular gravity I mentioned.

If you want to experience zero g in the near term, and at significantly lower cost than going into space, you can buy tickets to ride the Vomit Comet - the aircraft used to train astronauts. It moves in parabolic arcs, so that on the downwards dive passengers get up to 30 seconds of weightlessness before the plane has to pull up to avoid yet another sickening thud.

Some people find free fall rather disconcerting, as the primitive monkey brain keeps telling them they've fallen out of the tree.

Sorry about the geekspasm.

[arcadiagt5.livejournal.com]

you can buy tickets to ride the Vomit Comet - the aircraft used to train astronauts.

And there's a very good reason for the name too...

:)

[angriest.livejournal.com]

The vomit comet just seems like cheating.

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

Good geekspasm.