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Ed Yeates ReportingWant to take a camping trip to the moon? How about a business trip to Mars? NASA is allowing people to walk aboard its Starship 2040 for the next 12 days to see what a future spaceliner might look like.
It’s not necessarily a blueprint of a NASA spaceliner, but it gives the public an idea of what NASA envisions it might be like, boarding such a ship, getting ready to travel to and from space.
Martin Jensen, NASA Exhibit: "We're hoping somebody would be able to call a travel agent and book a trip on a spaceliner very easily like they do on an airliner today."
Just like in an airliner, you sit yourself down, strap in and secure all belongings. You might have a view of earth on one side, or the space station on the other. Everything is comfort controlled, but passengers are traveling in microgravity. The bathroom, as always in space, will be a challenge. Food is available here when you want it.
Entryways allow access into other compartments. An elevator takes you to levels above and below. Unlike conventional flying, passengers must exercise to keep their muscle mass up and their bones strong. And as they sweat in microgravity.
Jensen: "So you would have to have a vacuum or some type of suction to capture the sweat so it wouldn't get into the mechanical equipment, the computers, and damage them."
The Starship 2040 exhibit is open to the public as it tours through Northern Utah in the next few days. It will be at Hill Air Force Base and at the Clark Planetarium in Salt Lake next week. The exhibit is free.
