chancegold

To each their own, I guess, but you should probably put a towel down regardless of the type or make up of expected bodily fluids.

Michael C. Hall seems like one of those guys that would be just as creepy in real life as he is in most of his roles. Is he? Or is he completely different and just an amazing actor?

Not OP, but you should add more specifics than your age.

You can go to space now if you want, but I'm guessing you wouldn't be asking about it in a reddit thread if you had $20+ million or whatever the Russians are currently charging. I just looked it up- Russia stopped sending tourists because of increased ISS crew sizes.. plus the fact that they were the only cab in town.. around 2010. However, with SpaceX starting crew missions, the US is looking to rent out a room for $35k/night with a total expected trip cost if ~$50m. I suspect Russia will also fire back up it's program as well for a similar rate. Important thing is- you could go now.

So, are you looking to take a sub-orbital flight that lets you experience null-G and see the curve of the earth (currently possible)? Take an orbital flight (currently possible)? Visit ISS (has been done, expected to resume imminently)? Trip around the moon (SpaceX recently booked a dude on such a trip, with the trip itself slated for sometime in the next 10 yrs iirc)? Visit/walk on the moon (nothing seriously scheduled yet, afaik..)? Or even something beyond all of that?

Additionally- given that some people want to wrap up all of their travelling before they reach x age, what is your personal window rather than your current age? Ie- "What is the probability I could [see last section] in the next [x] years?

Finally, and most importantly, how much do you want/expect to be able to spend?

TL;DR Version Rephrase your question as:

"Will I be able to [specific type of space visit you want] in the next [number of years you would still want to make the journey] years for $[budget]?"

Do you hope or intend to run for president again in 2016?

If so, what are your plans to gain a following in more mainstream America?

You seem to do an AMA here every few months and I know you've been on Colbert/Daily Show a couple times, but I think you have this demographic tapped. I don't hear or see anything about you in any other mainstream media, and, let's face it, the reddit/Colbert/Daily Show followers are for the most part the same people.

I'd say we've been pretty far from the tri-athlete war hero doctor standard for several decades. The Gemini/Apollo missions were literally "Alright! This thing we slapped together should work and be relatively safe. If something goes wrong, though, you need to be able to perform differential equations and orbital trajectory calculations using this slide rule and scrap of paper. Oh, and you'll probably be losing air and spinning uncontrollably if that were to happen.. so you kind of need to be able to hold your breath for 5-6 minutes."

With those missions widening, correcting, and refining our knowledge of space on top of the invention, deployment, and exponential growth of computers, the internet, and global communications, it seems to be a very different situation. I mean, think about it. Today, if something were to go wrong on the ISS, anyone on there has space suits, section seal-offs, an emergency return vehicle (iirc), a variety of spare parts and even limited fabrication capability, redundancy systems galore, etc. On top of all that- for damn near any issue, an expert or team of experts from anywhere on the planet can remote in and either fix the problem directly or walk them through fixing it with the benefit of real-time sensors, system monitoring, and high-def video.

That being the case.. so long as your heart is judged to be unlikely to explode in the next 6 months and you can fit in a suit.. bon voyage?