A Barcelona based company is working on a space hotel project called "Galactic Suite." That it expects to be ready in 2012. The cost for the trip and a 3 day stay would be 4 million dollars +. The project will cost approximately 3 Billion dollars to complete. The company has been elusive about who the backer is that is fronting that 3 billion dollars. But they have determined that there are 40,000 people in the world that could afford to make that trip and stay at the space hotel.
This story is mildly curious from an technology standpoint, but really we hear reports similar to this all the time and they go largely unnoticed or never materialize. The thing that stood out here was the target date. There are many that hold the belief that December, 21 2012 marks the date of some sort of catastrophic change, based on the Mayan Long Count Calendar. The Mayans determined that on this day the sun at Winter Solstice would be reaching the actual equator of the Milky Way Galaxy. It is theorized that when the sun crosses the galactic equator that its magnetic fields will reverse causing catastrophic weather and natural disasters on earth, and potentially the end of the world as we know it. There has been sunspot activity, that indicates a new solar cycle is on the horizon. In July/August 2006 a sunspot appeared that was magnetically backwards.
This theory obviously has it's detractors as well, and some feel it is more of a metaphoric or spiritual end of the world and a new dawn rather than a literal one. However, I found the timing interesting and the limited and exclusive nature of the project ripe for a little conspiratorial thinking.
Below are a couple links to sites that go into the stories and varying perspectives about 2012 and a program that The History Channel ran on it as well for a slightly more mainstream perspective.
http://www.december212012.com/
http://www.2012predictions.net/
History Channel Documentary
part one
Part two
Part three
Part four
Part five
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
So how will WE write it? How shall it read when we look back on December 21, 2012? We certainly have the elements in place to destroy ourselves. The planet has experienced cataclysmic events in its history - polar shifts, ice ages, etc. No one really knows. What the Mayan’s meant with their End-Count calendar will always be up for speculation. It fires the imagination, for sure. SOooo let's write it like we want it. That is what Chris Fenwick did in the #1 Visionary Novel: "the 100th human." You choose...
www.the100thhuman.com
Post a Comment