not rocket science

I love everything about space exploration, and that’s why I don’t give a wet slap that William Shatner is “going to space,” which I put in quotes because no matter how Jeff Bezos tries to spin it, his rocket is no different from a very tall roller coaster ride. Oh, it’s an actual a rocket that technically flies higher than the Karman line, which is the arbitrary boundary line where the earth’s atmosphere ends and outer space begins, but it “goes to space” in a way that’s a lot like cruise ship tourists “going to Mexico” for a couple hours during a port call. The awkwardly named New Shepherd rocket (Al Shepherd, the first American in space, rode a rocket to almost twice the height of the Karman line) lobs a crew capsule into the very lowest level of what could be called space for a few minutes, riding a parabolic arc that gives the occupants a few minutes of weightlessness the same way that a roller coaster does when it climbs a ridiculously high ramp, then plummets from the top. Whoopee.