AUSTRIAN SHOPPERS at the German-owned discount supermarket Penny Markt – a low-rent competitor to Aldi and Lidl – have quite a selection of special offers this week: a snow shovel for €9.99, scented candles for €3.29, or a trip to space for €209,555.
Cross the final frontier and save! This week’s bargain brochure crows: “Experience weightlessness, see the stars winking at you from the blackness of space: breathtaking and overwhelming!” As usual with special offers, it’s worth reading the small print.
Your deluxe trip to space is a 40-minute flight around the earth in a specially built “space plane” scheduled to lift off in 2011.
You will be flown business class to “Spaceport” in Oklahoma, headquarters of the Rocketplane company behind the space tourism endeavour.
There you will be fitted with a custom-made flight overall and given five days of training. Then, as one of four space tourists, you will be strapped into the tiny plane, based on Lear Jet technology.
All going well, the shuttle will lift you to a height of 12,000m before the rocket booster is launched. You will feel a g-force of three times your body weight pushing down on you as the plane is catapulted into sub-orbit, 105 km (65 miles) above the earth.
By that stage, the rocket will have either blown up or reached a velocity of 3,400 km/h – almost three times the speed of sound.
The trip around the earth can begin, including an estimated five minutes of weightlessness.
Afterwards, all going well, you will return to earth for an “After- Flight Party” where you will be given a souvenir poster of your flight, a goodie bag and your “Civilian Cosmonaut Wings”.
Of course real bargain hunters might want to skip the Penny Markt bargain entirely and go directly to Rocketplane in Oklahoma, where they’re offering a no-frills flight for €170,000.
The maiden voyage of the space plane is still at least two years away, but an orderly queue has already begun to form.
“I’m going for the view,” said retired real estate investor Reda Anderson from Beverly Hills to luxury lifestyle magazine Robb Report.
“I’ve seen the earth but not completely. I don’t want to see every nook and cranny, it’s time to go up.” (While the “when” of the flight is still open, the “who” you will be flying with is starting to firm up.) As well as Rena, you will be sharing the cabin with Mathilde Epron, a French air hostess who won her seat after finding a winning code in a chocolate bar.
(If Mathilde can’t make it, the two final seats may go to Japanese newlyweds after Rocketplane did a deal with an agency for space weddings.) From the cramped cabin specifications, it appears unlikely there will be room for anyone else.
