gizmodo.com: It’s long been said that space tourism will be big business. Whole spaceports have sprung up (and basically died) in belief of that economic promise. The problem is that shooting people past our bubble of atmosphere, safely and reliably, is still tricky. Not to mention you need to be rich as hell or dead to even consider it.
4 comments:
This concept art is beautiful and I wish that it could be a real thing because it does a great job of blending the science and the fiction of this universe. It uses the retro-stylized ideas of see-through everything and rounded edges but also a more realistic landscape and sci-fi-movie worthy central structure that looks like it came out of The Martian or Ender's Game. I think the idea of trying to recreate a Mars colony is an interesting concept, and I really wish that it had the funding it needed to get off the ground. I wonder if this represents a resurgence in the fascination with outer space that also occurred in the 1960s. We definitely have reached a point where sci-fi movies and television saturate our culture and alien motifs are popular among trendy youths. This is an interesting cultural phenomenon because, while the last cultural space age could be linked to the actual scientific space age, there isn't a clear parallel to scientific progress. So what caused this resurgence in the popularity of outer space?
Okay, so sometimes humans do crazy things, like try and build Mars into the middle of Las Vegas. I’ve been a long time space junkie, growing up on the original Star Trek because my mom was a big fan and recently want to learn more about theoretical physics and listening to things like the Titanium Physicist podcast (it’s okay, but not great. If anyone knows of a good podcast that discusses space and science, I’d love to hear about it.) Therefore, I’d really excited about the recent trend towards sci-fi in the mainstream with the popularity of things like The Martian. I would love to go explore a Mars World entertainment park like this. However, I’m wary of the phase “free admission.” While I love not paying to go places, for this kind of operation that just means that the inside will be stuffed full of overpriced merchandise. I would much rather pay a large ticket price and be able to explore a sleek, beautiful Mars colony without the presence of a looming gift shop.
I love this. This whole thing has a very retro-futuristic vibe to me. To me, the love and fascination with space is very 50's and 60's, and I think if this ever happened, they should do a callout to that. I'm not sure how fun a realistic Mars Casino and Resort would be, with just dirt and not enough oxygen, but if they really turned up the kitsch factor this could be a blast. Even the design models have cut out and pasted idealistic couples, evocative of pop art. I think Vegas, is really the place for something kitschy and idealistic since that's really what its all about. I would just be worried that patrons in Vegas would not actually care about something as scientific and cool as a replicated Mars, and the whole thing would jsut become sad and cheap, filled with slots machines. i guess investors feel the same, having only raised a sliver of the estimated 2 billion needed to construct it. I mean I'm all about building public interest in space pursuits, but Perhaps that money should be going towards NASA, rather than a simulation of what science can achieve, though.
I think this is absolutely hilarious. The concept art is beautiful, and the idea is exciting, but the thing I cannot get past is the ridiculous budgetary problems. Seriously? 6 years of working on this project and the whole "We only have .025% of what we need" thing hasn't been considered much of an obstacle? And what is this about free admission... That is going to be a mess. In Las Vegas? It will be packed all the time, security will be extremely difficult, and yeah, merchandise is going to cost an arm and a leg, which I think more people are becoming conscious of and probably wouldn't buy into. Which means the project is making no money. There's also the question of maintaining it...if there is free admission and there are all kinds of crazy Vegas people running around, I can't imagine it's going to stay as nice looking as the concept art for long.
I just don't really think that they're going to get the money for this, and if they do, that it will not be a very successful project for long.
Post a Comment