Monday, June 23, 2008

JJNN 31 June 23rd, 2008

Welcome again to JJNN for Monday June 23rd, 2008. Today I want to talk about space, the final frontier.

There are a lot of cool things going on in space lately. The discovery of ice on mars and the hydroxyl radical found in the atmosphere of venus just to name two. But, I am going to ignore all that good stuff completely and talk to you about this. It seems a company called First Advantage and another company named RocketPlane, which is part of Kistler Aerospace Corporation, are joining together to give people something they can find nowhere else.

So, a consulting company and an aerospace company working together. It doesn't sound so bad, right? Well, actually, the consulting company actually owns another company called LADIRB. LADIRB is a wedding planning company. This is the actual company that is working with the aerospace company. You may be asking yourself what a wedding planning company and an aerospace company are doing working together. This is a very good question. The reason those two companies are working together is so they can give space weddings.

Yep, that's right, space weddings. I have heard of strange theme weddings before. In fact I have even been to one (no insult meant sis :p), but this is the first wedding that I can think of that is so extreme. I guess it beats getting hitched in Vegas by gunpoint, but it feels a might forced to me.

The process is easy enough. First, you have to sign up for your space wedding. Well, actually, I think first you have to find someone to get married to, but that is a moot point I guess. The sign up starts on July first of this year. Best be getting to it if you don't want a long line outer space.

Second, you hand over a wheelbarrow full of money. How much do you think a space wedding costs? In this case it is 240 million yen. That is about 2 million USD. That takes a lot of sales on ebay to pay for, but if your a person with that much money just laying around this is a wedding for you. Though, I would say there are probably better things that you could do with your money.

Third, you have to wait. It takes a long time for space weddings to get off the ground. The first space weddings are planning to be held sometime in 2011. This means that you have to find someone that you want to marry that can wait that long as well. Short relationships are not meant for space weddings it seems.

Fourth, you have to go into training. What did you expect? You are going into space after all. I would assume that a person would have to be physically fit (as in no bad hearts) as well, but I didn't see that warning anywhere on the website. Any way, 4 days before the wedding the bride and groom to be have to go into training. The exact type of training hasn't been revealed, but I would assume it would be a shorter easier version of the training of any astronaut.

Lastly, the bride and groom are launched into space (about 100km from the surface of the earth) and the wedding ceremony starts. You may be thinking that the ceremony is a little on the lonely side with just the bride and the groom in the rocket, but that's not really the case. You see, the ceremony is broadcast live over the internet for all to watch.

I wonder if the priest will say "I now pronounce you earthling and earthling."

Any way, it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is 結婚式(けっこんしき). It is pronounced kekkon-shiki and means wedding. I always liked the traditional weddings in Japan. It's too bad that more people are going for the Christian weddings now. Not only that, but more and more people are getting married in hotels...bah

That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.

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