During the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, Disney World's Space Mountain and Mission Space first closed and then opened in stages with limited numbers of visitors. The Disney experience changed. Fewer people could ride Space Mountain or Mission Space. That made the cost-for-what-you-get at Disney less attractive, especially if what-you-get is a day beneath a mask in high heat and humidity under limiting restrictions that prevent you from that “Disney Experience” of pre-pandemic days.
For just a few dollars more than a typical family trip to Disney World, you will soon be able to ride in a balloon to the stratosphere. Yes, Space Perspective wants to send people aloft in a pressurized capsule affixed to a slowly rising balloon for just under $125,000.* Okay, I lied about the price comparison. The balloon ride would be more expensive than a trip to Disney.
Uber-optimistic Jane Poytner and co-founder Taber MacCallum lived in Biosphere 2 in the 1990s. Poytner says that the ride in the 15-foot-wide balloon that is equipped with a bathroom (with a window) will lift passengers to altitudes sufficient for them to observe the blackness of space, the curvature of Earth, and the thin blue line of the atmosphere.
In a short video (see footnote), Poytner says that the driving force behind this balloon experience is for people to get a new perspective on where they live. She says she acquired a new perspective on life through her time in the Biosphere. Okay. I get that. Any new experience provides a new perspective. I’ve seen Earth from over 40,000 feet in a jumbo jet. Even at 33,000 feet, I’ve seen Earth’s curvature and the gotten a perspective on the atmosphere I can’t get from my house at 1,040 feet above sea level or from the local mountain at 2,700 feet. Yes, nothing like looking down on where people live to get some idea about human folly and the tiny personal and social worlds that are important to each of us.
I think, for example, of my local mountain, Chestnut Ridge. From Point Lookout or from the Summit Hotel on the western side of the ridge, one can look down on Uniontown, Pennsylvania and on villages to the west. From those two perspectives, the buildings and houses seem quite small, and the view has always drawn me to question what might occur behind those tiny windows in those tiny buildings and houses. Are people arguing behind those windows? Are they giving one another the cold shoulder? Are they actively engaging in violence? What is going on behind those tiny windows? The views from a mountain, from a plane, from a balloon in the stratosphere, or from the International Space Station inspire such questions. And one doesn’t have to go to a mountainside like those outside Denver on the Front Range or outside Reno like Mt. Rose to get a similar experience. The observation deck on any building like the Empire State Building affords a look over many “small windows” behind which there might also be strife—as well as friendship, compassion, and love.
Poytner’s balloon flights are, like Disney rides, limited to those who can afford them. Even plane rides are beyond the reach of many people. But perspectives on life seen at a distance are available to anyone who wishes to look. They require only the looking, and they provide insights into the fragility, folly, and tragedy that often disrupt lives. And from those distant perspectives come lessons.
At some time, each of us is behind one of those little windows, in one of those little houses. Think the next time a plane flies overhead or you pass by a distant mountain or tall building what your concerns look like from those perspectives. Think, too, of all those optimistic and good people who also live behind those little windows in their intent to live compassionately with others whose perspectives are limited by a foolishly myopic, psychological shortsightedness.
* https://www.cnet.com/news/space-perspective-wants-to-sell-balloon-rides-to-the-edge-of-space/
For just a few dollars more than a typical family trip to Disney World, you will soon be able to ride in a balloon to the stratosphere. Yes, Space Perspective wants to send people aloft in a pressurized capsule affixed to a slowly rising balloon for just under $125,000.* Okay, I lied about the price comparison. The balloon ride would be more expensive than a trip to Disney.
Uber-optimistic Jane Poytner and co-founder Taber MacCallum lived in Biosphere 2 in the 1990s. Poytner says that the ride in the 15-foot-wide balloon that is equipped with a bathroom (with a window) will lift passengers to altitudes sufficient for them to observe the blackness of space, the curvature of Earth, and the thin blue line of the atmosphere.
In a short video (see footnote), Poytner says that the driving force behind this balloon experience is for people to get a new perspective on where they live. She says she acquired a new perspective on life through her time in the Biosphere. Okay. I get that. Any new experience provides a new perspective. I’ve seen Earth from over 40,000 feet in a jumbo jet. Even at 33,000 feet, I’ve seen Earth’s curvature and the gotten a perspective on the atmosphere I can’t get from my house at 1,040 feet above sea level or from the local mountain at 2,700 feet. Yes, nothing like looking down on where people live to get some idea about human folly and the tiny personal and social worlds that are important to each of us.
I think, for example, of my local mountain, Chestnut Ridge. From Point Lookout or from the Summit Hotel on the western side of the ridge, one can look down on Uniontown, Pennsylvania and on villages to the west. From those two perspectives, the buildings and houses seem quite small, and the view has always drawn me to question what might occur behind those tiny windows in those tiny buildings and houses. Are people arguing behind those windows? Are they giving one another the cold shoulder? Are they actively engaging in violence? What is going on behind those tiny windows? The views from a mountain, from a plane, from a balloon in the stratosphere, or from the International Space Station inspire such questions. And one doesn’t have to go to a mountainside like those outside Denver on the Front Range or outside Reno like Mt. Rose to get a similar experience. The observation deck on any building like the Empire State Building affords a look over many “small windows” behind which there might also be strife—as well as friendship, compassion, and love.
Poytner’s balloon flights are, like Disney rides, limited to those who can afford them. Even plane rides are beyond the reach of many people. But perspectives on life seen at a distance are available to anyone who wishes to look. They require only the looking, and they provide insights into the fragility, folly, and tragedy that often disrupt lives. And from those distant perspectives come lessons.
At some time, each of us is behind one of those little windows, in one of those little houses. Think the next time a plane flies overhead or you pass by a distant mountain or tall building what your concerns look like from those perspectives. Think, too, of all those optimistic and good people who also live behind those little windows in their intent to live compassionately with others whose perspectives are limited by a foolishly myopic, psychological shortsightedness.
* https://www.cnet.com/news/space-perspective-wants-to-sell-balloon-rides-to-the-edge-of-space/
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