I understand the appeal. Really, I do. Every kid has an astronaut phase. I was no different Every person has some favorite sci-fi movie about space aliens. Personally, I enjoyed Star Wars. Well, Return of the Jedi specifically. I know people say that is the worst of the original trilogy but I don’t care. I thought the Ewoks were cool, even though I think it would have made sense if Chewbacca was their god and not C3PO. I admit that when Elon Musk opened up space tourism, I was a little intrigued. Breaking the bonds of the atmosphere, floating in zero-gravity, going where ancestors never dreamed. I am the only in my group of friends who hasn’t gone to the moon. About half of my friends have gone to Mars. Frankly, their stories sound boring. It’s a long, long trip in small, small ship. No thank you. There isn’t a whole lot to do on the moon, and even less on Mars. They say you get to help out with the terraforming. They say you get to be part of history. It sounds like you pay a boat-load of money to work for a private company. I have to pay you to work for you and you get paid for the work I produce? If I wanted to see a barren desert I could drive to Las Vegas. Plus, there is so much to explore right here on earth. Why should I go garden my neighbor’s yard when I haven’t opened all of the doors to my own house first? I have not been to the Sydney Opera House, I have not seen the pyramids, I have not walked the Great Wall of China. Those are all so much more appealing than digging in dirt thousands of miles in the sky. But this is an opportunity to build the opera house, the pyramids, the wall! No thank you. I would rather be the tourist instead of the worker. Does anyone know the names of the people who actually worked on those projects? Maybe the people who designed them, sure. But the actual workers? No. And no one will know the names of my friends or the thousands of others who fork over as much money as a car to help a billionaire become a trillionaire. I want to breathe in the Amazon rain forest, not an astronaut’s flight suit. If I have to have a breathing apparatus, I would rather be under the ocean than out in space. Humans know less about the ocean floor than we do about the surface of the moon. I would rather learn that than work there.