NO BATHROOM ON JEFF BEZOS’ SPACESHIP

Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos says people who buy a ticket to fly on his company’s space tourism vehicle New Shepard will need to use the bathroom before flight, and they’d better not get sick during the trip – the company has no plans to install systems to deal with human waste. New Shepard is the name of the reusable, suborbital vehicle produced by Bezos’ private spaceflight company Blue Origin. He says that after years of test flights, he is hopeful that Blue Origin will fly customers in 2018. And when they do, you better be able to hold it. Passengers, six each trip, will fly about 62 miles above the surface of the planet. From that altitude, passengers will experience weightlessness, and see the curve of the planet and the darkness of space. The entire trip will take about 40 minutes, which is why no bathroom. The cost of a trip aboard New Shepard has not yet been announced, but for comparison Virgin Galactic has been selling tickets on its space plane for between $200,000 and $250,000 apiece.
* Whoa! I just crapped my pants.
* Sure, they say the flight is 40 minutes, but remember that when you’re stuck in low earth orbit for a week.
* No bathroom, but you can buy a barf bag onboard for $10,000.
* Hey, this guy didn’t get to be a billionaire by treating people right.
* This isn’t even the scariest part. The six passengers go up alone – with no human escort from Blue Origin. Talk about cutting corners.
* In space, no one can hear you scream – except the other five passengers.
* You just go up and come down? So the New Shepard is still at the Alan Shepard stage.
* Don’t all line up to buy a ticket at once.
* Sorry, but there’s no need to go. I already experience weightlessness watching those panels on cable news.