It's everyone's fantasy to get strapped to a giant rocket and blasted into the heavens. Right? Well, except for the space sickness, the difficult-to-operate space toilet, the inevitable contingency that your trip could turn out like the movie Gravity.
Going to space is complicated. And it should make for great television.
That must be why Virgin Galactic and NBC have teamed up to do a Survivor-like reality show in which the winner would get a free trip up into the stars. They're calling it Space Race. And believe it or not, it's one of three space-based reality shows in the works right now.
This sounds tempting. Tough it out on a silly reality show in exchange for a few weightless minutes? A ticket on Virgin Galactic is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and you might even get to sit next to Brad Pitt? Or would you rather just take the money and spend it on Candy Crush? It's quite the conundrum. So what do you think: would you want to be on a space-based reality TV show? [New Scientist]