There are lots of good reasons to go to space. But one less discussed reason is the urge to individual adventure. Earth, it seems, is pretty much all out of things to do that other people not only haven’t done, but that aren’t already booked solid. Take, for example, climbing Mt. Everest. Within living human memory, climbing that mountain was something no human had done. And now… this:
This is confirmed to be the “conga line” of tourists trying to reach the peak of Everest. When they get back, what can they really say? They will have been surrounded by a mass of humanity; hundreds before, hundreds after, not allowed to spend a moment in silence and solitude at the roof of the world because you’ve got to get out of the way of the next crowd. Sure, they will have climbed the tallest mountain on Earth, but really… is it much more of an experience than, say, climbing to the top of a skyscraper, or running a marathon that ten thousand other also ran?
It’s getting to be about as unique an experience as all that hollow Instagram “influencer” nonsense.
What the adventurers of the world need isn’t a chairlift to the top of Everest, but a direct flight to the base of Olympus Mons, or the rim of Valles Marinaris. A lodge at the base of Verona Rupes on Miranda, for the ten kilometer climb to the top and the twelve-minute freefall for the basejumpers. A base camp in the rings of Saturn for a whole new kind of marathon, one where people bounce from chunk to chunk. Skiers on the sulfur snows of Io. Hang gliding across Titan.
Earth is *done.* It’s all been done. Pretty much nothing left that not only hasn’t been done, but that you won’t have to wait in line for.