I just returned from a space cruise to the moon and beyond, and I have to tell you, it was the vacation of a lifetime! I’ll tell you a little more about that in a minute, but first I want to tell you this.
Ever since I was a little girl, I have wondered what it would be like to travel into space. Back then, there was a lot of interest in space because it was a novelty. The first moon landing happened a couple of years after I was born. There were a few more moon landings, a moon landing mission that had to be aborted, and then NASA decided it was time to turn its attention to other things, like the International Space Station. There was some interest in that, too, until the Challenger disasters, which disheartened people so much, they stated to lose interest in the conquest of space. Then along came Elon Musk and some other visionaries who realized space travel could be commercialized and made accessible to everyone.
Like many others, I followed the news about those entrepreneurs and their rapidly growing lists of accomplishments, hoping against hope that they might succeed in designing a safe, affordable spaceship capable of taking people like me, an ordinary citizen, up into the stars while I was still alive. They did it. They succeeded. Thanks to them, I was able to fulfill one of my wildest dreams, to travel out into space as a tourist.
I went to Robo Travel and, after an extensive conversation with a robot agent, booked a year-long trip on a space cruiser. (It would have been hard to resist after the agent provided me with a holographic tour of the cruiser, its amenities, and the accommodations I would have.) Before I left, the agent also gave me some holographic disks to bring home and activate to learn more about the trip and what to expect.
By watching those and interacting with them, I found out that I’d be assigned an AI companion to serve as my personal assistant and answer all my questions on the trip. That was wonderful! I was also given a data connection to talk to the AI meal planner to describe my dietary do’s, don’ts, and desires. The meal planner assured me that the meals on board the cruiser would be spectacular, and they were.
1500 people and I departed on our cruise to the moon and Mars a little more than a year ago now. The space cruiser blasted off from Honolulu and a few hours after that, we were having our first party in space to celebrate it. We orbited Earth for about a week to get used to being weightless, and then we headed to one of the Space Hotels on the moon to prepare for the next phase of the trip. I bought some souvenirs while we were there, including a Pet Moon Rock, among other things. Then, before we knew it, it was time to get back on the cruiser and blast off for Mars. On the way there, we stopped at several floating Space Hotels to have a change of scenery and meet some other folks, all of which was fun.
By the time you read this, this may all seem very primitive, but it was unimaginable when I was a child. Just remember, one of your descendants was one of the very first space tourists on a space cruiser! May you all have as much fun in your lives as I did.
(from Pandora B.)
Travel in 2039 