YOU know space tourism is becoming accepted when it gets included in credit-card offers. The online service SpaceDaily reports that American Express has added Space Adventures 鈥� the folks who sent two tourists to the International Space Station on Soyuz spacecraft 鈥� to its 鈥渕embership rewards鈥� programme.
Accumulate a mere million points, and you get a free zero-gravity ride on a 鈥渧omit comet鈥�. Three million points will take you on a Mach 2.5 Mig-25 fighter to the edge of space at 24 kilometres, where you can see the darkness of space and the curvature of the Earth. If you have accumulated 20 million points, you can book a sub-orbital flight to 100 kilometres, treating you to several minutes of weightlessness and spectacular views.
Sounds like fun. But perhaps you shouldn鈥檛 pack your bag quite yet. The sub-orbital spacecraft is not yet flying passengers. And it鈥檚 likely to take a bit of time for most of us to rack up enough membership reward points. American Express gives you one for every dollar you spend on the card.
Advertisement
NOTICES advising people on how to deal with an emergency need to be crisp and clear. Not all of them manage it.
Damon de Laszlo reports this one, which he saw on the wall of a lift in a hotel in Switzerland:
鈥淚n case of breakdown, proceed as follows:
1 Stay calm. Help is near
2 Press the button No 1
3 Press the button No 2 and wait 20 seconds
4 If no answer, press the button No 1, then the button No 3 and wait 20 seconds
5 If no answer, start all over again鈥�
TRY searching the Internet for the Nippit 3000, a new cellphone made by Belgian company Prophy-Lectric headed up by an executive called Peter Priapikoff. As you might already have guessed, there is an interesting story behind any reports you can still find.
David Benjamin is an American author living in France. He was at a cellphone conference in Cannes recently, 鈥渇illing a little of the web鈥檚 infinite space鈥� with news stories on the latest in mobile telephony. Bemused by the bizarre features which manufacturers now build into their phones in their attempts to get people to throw away their perfectly good old ones, Benjamin decided to relieve the tedium for himself and readers by cooking up a cod news story.
In it, he enthused over Nippit 3000, a 鈥渃ontraceptive鈥� phone with a voice-activated ultrasonic sound cone that fires sound waves that kill any sperm cells within 3 metres. For good measure, he added that the same manufacturer had introduced a phone that contained the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica and a 200-volt 鈥淒efenderfone鈥� stun-gun.
Because the story was not going to be posted on the internet on April Fool鈥檚 Day, and to make sure no one could possibly take the report seriously, Benjamin identified himself as a 鈥渟atirist鈥� and 鈥淟uddite鈥�. But within days the 鈥淣ippit 3000鈥� story was on several websites as a serious report. Even the sites that wondered if it might be a hoax still quoted the imaginary executive from the non-existent company without checking.
Benjamin used to live in Japan, where he wrote a column for an English-language newspaper. He left the paper and the country soon after writing that the Japanese air force had bombed Pearl Harbor by mistake, because it had bought a job lot of faulty compasses and turned left out of Tokyo instead of right to a training exercise.
Will he perhaps now be leaving France?
JOHN CLAMP recently purchased a bottle of Assisi Tea Tree Concentrated Shampoo for Rabbits and Small Animals. The description on the bottle states: 鈥淏lended with the finest pure plant oils, pH balanced, low lather and non-toxic. Suitable for all coats. Gentle to the skin. Acting as a non irritant for those rabbits or small animals with skin problems.鈥� Below this it says: 鈥淣ot tested on animals.鈥�
IN Rob Ellis鈥檚 office in Birmingham, UK, a notice on the wall states that if staff have a health and safety problem involving a near miss, it should be reported by contacting the 鈥淢idlands Regional Office Near Miss Hotline鈥�.
Ellis says they have been looking for Miss Hotline for a quite while, but to no avail. So they still have no idea where the Midlands Regional Office is.
FINALLY, lucky Mark Ribbands recently took delivery of a Robinson R22 two-seater helicopter. Inevitably, it came with a weighty tome detailing the many regulations that apply. One that caught his eye was the minimum crew requirement in the flight limitations section, where Ribbands was unsurprised to learn that the rule was 鈥淢inimum crew is one pilot鈥�.
The label of a bottle of Tzu Sparkling Apple bought by Stephen Harvey advised him: 鈥淩efrigerate after opening and consume immediately.鈥� Harvey wants to know if this means he should climb into the fridge with the drink鈥�