A segment of rock folklore suggests that the Rolling Stones penned the hit ‘2000 light years from home’ as a psychedelic tribute to the buzz that surrounded space exploration back in 1967. If it is true then the group may now be wondering if Sir Richard Branson is considering it as the theme song for the inaugural flight of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo: the craft it designed to usher in the era of space tourism and next generation hospitality. Barriers to entry (you may be thinking re-entry) is not a phrase used in everyday speak by the innovators at Virgin. Or one that made the Stones famous.
Some commentators think that this willingness to challenge our view of normality is essential if we and our companies hope to prosper in the future. The next few years look set to be full of uncertainty, particularly economically, with many agreeing that things must eventually get back to normal. Maybe, some smart money says: ‘just do not act surprised when it is not the old normal.’ Once the nature of our ‘new normal’ starts becoming clear, audacious dreams like space tourism could already have become reality.
It is difficult not to take the idea seriously after reading this excerpt from the company’s web anticipation of the experience: “Your journey to space will be one of incredible contrast and sensory overload. From the spaceport to 50 000 ft, you will be in the spacecraft nestled beneath the wing of the specially designed mother ship (the almost gawky looking WhiteKnightTwo). It will be a time of anticipation and perhaps contemplation of what is ahead. You will know the rest of your crew and enjoy the confidence that has come from preparing with them for the trip you are about to take together.
Then the countdown to release, a brief moment of quiet before a wave of unimaginable but controlled power, surges through the craft. You are instantly pinned back into your seat, overwhelmed but enthralled by the howl of the rocket motor and the eye-watering acceleration which, as you watch the read-out, has you travelling in a matter of seconds, at over 2500 mph.
As you hurtle through the edges of the atmosphere, the large windows show the cobalt blue sky turning to mauve and indigo and finally to black. You are on a high, this is really happening, you are loving it, and coping well. You start to relax; but in an instant your senses are back on full alert, the world contained in your spaceship has completely transformed.
The rocket motor has been switched off and it is quiet. But it is not just quiet, it is QUIET. The silence of space is as awe inspiring as was the roar of the rocket just moments earlier. What is really getting your senses screaming now though, is that the gravity which has dominated every movement you have made since the day you were born is not there any more. There is no up and no down and you are out of your seat experiencing the freedom that even your dreams underestimated. After a graceful mid-space summersault you find yourself at a large window and what you see would make your hair stand on end if the zero gravity had not already achieved that effect. Below you (or is it above you?) is a view that you have seen in countless images but the reality is so much more beautiful, so much more vivid and produces emotions that are strong but hard to define. The blue map, curving into the black distance is familiar but has none of the usual marked boundaries. The incredibly narrow ribbon of atmosphere looks worryingly fragile. What you are looking at is the source of everything it means to be human, and is home. You see that your fellow astronauts are equally spellbound, all lost in their own thoughts and storing away the memories…”
It is a marketing pitch, agreed. But if you subscribe to the view that successful marketers identify a scarcity (unmet need) today, and respond by developing the products and services that make it seem normal tomorrow, then this willingness to embrace the future could leave Virgin partying to the Stones while its staid competitors flounder in the past.
There are of course more conventional folklorists who believe the Jagger/Richards idea for the song was conceived by a night spent in jail on drug-related charges. Just, I suppose, as there are those who believe that everything in our lives is eventually set to return to 2008 style ‘normality’.
Steven Meyer, editor:
SA Instrumentation & Control
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