So you've been to the North Pole, trekked across Africa and explored the Amazon. What's left for the world-weary Stanford traveler? How about the final tourist frontier: space.
The Stanford Alumni Association's Travel/Study program has teamed up with a tour operator planning jaunts into the exosphere, a gravity-free zone 62 miles above the earth's surface. The first flight is set for December 1, 2001, and will cost $98,000.
The 2 1/2-hour trips are being put together by Zegrahm Space Voyages, an adventure-travel company. After a week of training, astrotourists will ride in a specially built six-passenger "space cruiser" attached to the belly of a conventional airplane. At 50,000 feet, the cruiser detaches and blasts out of the atmosphere--allowing astronaut wanna-bes to experience 2 1/2 minutes of weightlessness. Fitted with jet engines, the cruiser lands on a standard airport runway.
"At first blush, it sounded like Buck Rogers space fiction," says Duncan Beardsley, '59, director of the Travel/Study operation, which runs 50 somewhat more routine trips every year. "But as we looked into it, it started to look feasible."
So far, about 200 people have asked Beardsley for information about the trip. Only one alum--who asked to remain anonymous--has plunked down the required $5,000 deposit.
