MAN is going to the Moon for the first time. No, I don’t mean mankind. I mean the Isle of Man.
The Manx Moonshot is nearly ready for lift-off. I’m going. There just a few things I want to get settled first.
In the first place is the ticket one-way or return? I would like to feel that I will coming back to Earth.
For £100 million, which is rather more than the Examiner pays me, it’s the least I would expect. There are also the other extra costs which are piled on to the fares in air travel these days like charges for hold baggage, charges for paying by credit card and shelling out for your food and drink on board.
The latter is a major factor. The trip to the Moon will take four months and that’s a lot of celebrity chef-recommended sandwiches and a lot of drinks like tea and coffee to pay for out of your own pocket.
And when we get to the Moon it’s going to be a cause for celebration, calling for breaking out the vintage Krug. Will we have to pay for that as well?
Mind you these matters are for people who actually pay.
The Manx company Excalibur Almaz, which is running this show, will expect the inaugural trip to be covered by the news media and I am well placed to do this on behalf of the Examiner and Manx Radio.
But the rules are that Excalibur Almaz will pay all expenses. It’s what we in the trade call a first-class freebie.
Next, what do we fly in? It seems the company has bought some former Soviet shuttles and space stations, presumably on eBay, and these are being done up, so to speak, in readiness for blast-off in 2015.
Sadly this will not happen from somewhere like the top of Snaefell, or Langness next to Jeremy’s gaff.
In fact there are no signs of rocket launch gantries anywhere in the Isle of Man unless the tower on the refuse incineration plant was originally built as a space ship in response to the Manx Government’s need for environmental credentials by way of entering the space race powered by household rubbish.
In the event, blast-off will be from Kazakhstan.
But no doubt Flybe will be running feeder flights there for all we Manstronauts
I also note that there will be no trained astronauts on board. Passengers will be taught to do the flying.
But I have a Manx driving licence and if you can negotiate the roads of the Isle of Man, coping with outer space will be a cinch.
As for the Moon, we will not land on it, which is good. I’m not too nimble these days and I didn’t like the look of the ladder Neil Armstrong climbed down when he made his prophetic speech: ‘One small step for Man . . ..’
No, we fly past the Moon at close range. In that case can I have a window seat please?
l KEVIN Rothwell reports a feature on ‘My Life in the Workplace’ in the Isle of Man Courier in which Victoria O’Dea, colon hydrotherapist, was quoted as saying: ‘I got what I wanted in the end.’ She added: ‘It’s never-ending.’
This shouldn’t make us giggle. But gurgling is all right.
l THE Daily Mail reported that Google spy planes are able to photograph people sunbathing in the privacy of their back gardens adding: ‘They show up objects just four inches wide.’
Such as?