Space Travel

"We're here to make space travel more accessible to all", said uber-entrepreneur, Sir Richard Branson, the linchpin and cashcow of Virgin Galactic, a fierce competitor in the new billionaires space race. With seats on board starting at USD$450,000, it might do to wait until the sales.

With Australia slamming shut its international borders for an entirely indefinite period of time in a tough stance to reduce the spread of COVID-19, it's interesting to look at other options for travel that are just as exciting as earth-bound travel, and indeed alternative ways of getting there. Outer space! 

What news from the outer space world? Well, here’s a thing. Space rockets have been hurtling from earth up into the stratosphere, one billionaire after another. Richard Branson onboard his Virgin Galactic, Elon Musk sending up his SpaceX, and that other billionaire, Amazon founder and business magnate, Jeff Bezos, on his Blue Origin journey. Pew-pew-pew-pew-pew and then fighting each other with giant laser beams - pew-pew-pew-pew-pew. Oh wait, no sorry, that’s Star Wars. I regularly get confused between Star Wars and IRL.

HAVING SAID THAT, I note that the U.S. Military have recently shot down an intercontinental ballistic missile in outer space from an aircraft carrier based off the coast of Hawaii in a testing exercise, so hi there Star Wars.

All of these recent space launches (with the exception of the extremely non-televised US military exercise) have been televised on some type of platform – TV network, YouTube, even Facebook stories. 

It’s always entertaining during space shuttle launches when the commentators discuss how long it’s going to take them to get to their destination, as if 27.5 hours was a long time, as is the case for the 4 astronauts that Elon Musk’s SpaceX recently took to the International Space Station (ISS). 

Girl, that’s a medium-haul international travel jaunt for Australians. Sydney to London is 23 hours more or less, and that’s not including airport waiting time, stopovers, lost luggage, impromptu body cavity searches, immigration control and waiting for a shuttle, which takes at least another 18 hours.

While the ISS altitude is only 408 km from earth, it takes over a day to get there, due to the spinny, spinny, upside-downy nature of our planet (that’s science-y talk – don’t feel bad if you can’t keep up with the terminology).

So what do they do on their roadtrip to above and beyond?

Well first of all, it’s not a roadtrip. It’s very serious space mission business and if you don’t know that, you can’t go. 

Second of all, there’s the snacks. When I fly international on a long haul, or drive to the shops on a relatively shorter haul, I always take snacks. What snack do the astronauts take and at what point in the first hour do they eat them all?

As you’d expect from NASA, the criteria for developing space food is: safety, stability, palatability, nutrition, resource minimisation, variety, reliability, and usability. Sure, but they probably just have M&Ms, and kill some time - and get some exercise - by chasing the little suckers around the zero-gravity cabin.

Also, are there even any Starbucks on the way if you need a caffeine pick-me-up? Who gets to drive? Can you call shotgun? Assigned seating is absolutely very serious business on a long haul. There’s certainly a slew of questions that I think we all want answered before we’ll fork out 450 grand. 

In terms of timeliness, I suppose taking a space ship to the ISS is slightly faster than taking the train, but I certainly don’t think you shave off that much time. 

One advantage of flying away from earth is you don’t have to put up with our pesky airport rules - no ticket counters, no passport control, no immigration checking to see if you’re carrying any activated vegemite and no waiting for shuttles that never come (or is that just LAX).

It certainly seems like, statistically, it’s a lot safer travelling on a space ship than a commercial earth-bound airline, specifically when it comes to take off and landing. On a space ship, you are flung into space and then flung back into the ocean. Perfectly safe. 

Boeing research shows that takeoff and landing are statistically more dangerous than any other part of a commercial earth-bound airline flight, with 49% of all fatal accidents happen during the final descent and landing phases of the average flight, while 14% of all fatal accidents happen during takeoff and initial climb. 

It's certainly often surmised by flight attendants in their pre-flight safety message that the plane will in fact crash if you don't return your tray table to the upright and locked position after your meal. Absolutely no need for food trays in space travel; your food floats. See! Space travel is the future.

So can you buy a ticket to go into space? Well, yes. I don't know about the future of international earth-bound air travel but space tourism will soon be a thing I'm sure of it, but it may be a wiser financial investment to just watch Star Wars.

Cost: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

 

Corin Forest - Snowman's land

Give Canberra the cold shoulder one day and head to the beautiful winter wonderland, Corin Forest, just 45 minutes out of the capital. Every winter, the snow castle's gates open to the public at Corin Forest, and you get to witness amazing snowmaking in action. If you go on the right day, you'll definitely get the Banff treatment, with lightly falling snow, dreamy white snow-covered mountains and fun questions from chill-dren like "where does snow go when it melts?" It's puddles. It goes into puddles, and dies forever.

Corin Forest possesses magical superpowers that allows it to create snow, absolutely created with aesthetics in mind specifically for an afternoon's entertainment for the chill-dren. Oh sorry, no, that's the plot of Frozen the movie. But it's really a very similar narrative.

The road out there is a comprehensively and reliably lovely dose of Australiana, and also very winding, and you'll know you're getting close to your destination when you are abruptly and irrevocably plunged into snowman's land, and you start to see the omnipresent snowmen/women/people perched precariously on car bonnets and roofs that are returning to Canberra as they swing around the mountainous bends. Thank the chill-dren for that.

Rules of engagement for having an extremely acceptable snow experience:

• Make your trip spontaneous. Watch the mountains and go on the day where you can actually see snow falling, because y’all are guaranteed some falling snow. Often it can melt quite quickly, or not settle at all, and then you'll just get mud. And maybe mad. At yourself. For not taking snow business more seriously.
  

• Plan ahead if you want to do any of the planned things, like booking ahead to get onto the SNOWPLAY or SKI AND RIDE if you don't want to disappoint your chill-dren. If you don't like your chill-dren, see previous dot point.
  

• What happens in the snow stays in the snow. Leave the snow at the snow. Don't put a snowman on your bonnet for the return trip to Canberra. Don't be that person. It's not some magical character from Frozen; it's just water. Unless you have a child in your car. And then you have snow choice in the matter.

• Don’t drive like a drunken psychopath. There can be black ice. Don't be the person who skids off the edge. Your bonnet snowman will be very cranky, lose his cool and may have a meltdown. And then sue you.
  

• Dress like a smart snowperson. Warm weather proof pants, layers, a warm jacket, gloves and weather proof shoes. You'll thank me.

• Order a coffee or hot chocolate and hot chips or pizza at the cafe. 

All of this might might melt your cold, cold heart. Here's some pics.

 

Right Royal Sneakers

Last year I went on a virtual quest, conducting an extensive search on my journey to find new white sneakers. White sneakers were and remain stylish and très chic but also they just go with all of the things. If you can’t colour match your ball gown or bridesmaid dress to the same shade of white as your sneakers you need some emergency stylin’ counsellin’ and perhaps also some holistic alternative fashun therapy.

So in the absence of a drive through carwash style arrangement for shoes in my city, I turned to Youtube to help me, sure that I was going to have to Do It Yourself, by myself.

During my deep dive, through the internet of shoe things, I noted the Duchess of Cambridge’s whitesneakers, that she wears to ramble through drenched paddocks in Kent in England to provide a social call to Girl Scouts, and on never-ending ramblings in the torrential rain on the hustings on golf courses in St Andrews – if there is even the hint of an involvement of walkies or amblings on her itinerary, she will throw on her white sneakers.

I thought surely they must be comfy little buggers, although probably also retail for as much as a small two bedroom apartment in Bondi. But crucially, they never seem to look tainted with dirt or stains, which is just a big positive in shoes and also in life.

So I googled ‘Kate’s white sneakers’ and was introduced to the idyllic world of Superga. And, as it turned out, Kate’s shoes were available at the shopping centre across the road from where I live, and were on jumbo sale, and only cost as much as a one bedroom apartment in Bondi. Half an hour later, I had Kate’s white Supergas. Life’s opportunities were about to go stratospheric! I tear up a bit every time I tell that beautiful, heart-warming story of when we first met.

Six months down the track, the Supergas have been an outstanding investment, apart from two of the key components of outstanding investments being earning me an income or appreciating in value. Look, they have intrinsic value.

They also recently needed a deep clean, sullied by their hard life on the streets. Like many owners of hardworking 4WD vehicles who live in the city, these sneakers have not seen a paddock in their whole life.

So unwisely overlooking the fact they were leather, I put them in the washing machine, where they astonishingly survived my unintentional attempt to cause them grievous bodily harm. I am out on bail, but am expecting to be charged with attempted murder, punishable by a life sentence of cleaning Supergas with a toothbrush.

As it turns out, I do not recommend putting white leather Supergas in the washing machine. While they had the ride of their life, one they will not forget, it really did not do the trick at all for spruiking them up. They were still scuffed, and the laces were still stained black from the metal eyelets. It turns out my Supergas are not like regal Supergas.

While Youtube can be weird for providing you with maintenance advice, Jiff and a toothbrush is the help I unequivocally decided to go with. As it turned out, I didn’t have any Jiff, so I went in with a multi-purpose cleaner and a suitcase of hope and dreams. And it worked!

But the cleaning process took just about all day, on and off, and then they had to air dry, because I put them in the dryer and that sounded like I had abducted a small person and jammed them in for a quick 30 minute spin cycle. If that ever transpires - just know - all my neighbours think I’m normal and quiet and they would “never have expected that she would put a small person in the dryer, let alone of a pair of leather Supergas”.

I’m now left to ponder whether the Duchess of Cambridge does not have an enviable mass of officers to tend to her every Supergas cleansing whim, punishable by an hour on spin cycle if they refuse the assignment.

 

Maniacal, murderous 'safety' pins

Safety pins. Bloody safety pins. Has a safety pin ever genuinely kept you safe? Ever delivered on the promise hidden in its name? Of course not. These spring-loaded metallic miscreants are chaos incarnate—tiny, twisted, pain-wielding demons masquerading as tools of convenience. Stupid little pricks. Literally.

In theory, the clasp exists to protect you from accidental stabbings. In practice, it’s about as effective as trying to stop a knife with a wet tissue. You’d get better results using barbed wire to hold your outfit together and just accepting the inevitable puncture wounds as part of the aesthetic.

I’ve been stabbed—repeatedly—by these so-called safety devices. I’ve bled. I’ve suffered. I’ve been left for dead on at least three separate occasions, betrayed by a bit of bent metal. Thankfully, I had a Band-Aid each time and a will to live.

And explain this: why do safety pins spontaneously explode open the moment you rummage through your handbag? You’re just looking for lip balm, and bam—sudden ambush. Blood. Swearing. Regret. Frankly, we should stop calling them safety pins and start calling them perilous pins, so newcomers to the planet know what they're really dealing with.

Let’s not pretend they save you from embarrassment either. Think you're cleverly hiding a wardrobe malfunction with a discreet pin? Think again. Everyone sees it. Everyone. And they’ll always announce it loudly, like they’ve just discovered a rare species in the wild:

 “Oh, is that a safety pin holding your hem up?”

Yes, Janet. Thank you. Kindly shut up now.

I’m sure the safety pin has a fascinating and noble history - something about the Bronze Age, Ancient Greece, and a bored guy without access to the internet—but honestly, who cares?

Their brief brush with fame? That was thanks to Liz Hurley using oversized ones to hold together a dress so tiny it defied physics. Iconic, yes. Practical? Questionable. Honestly, we should’ve renamed them tart pins then and there.

In the end, I think what really stings is this: I’m just bitter I didn’t invent them myself.