May 21, 2004 -- The Earth is such a 20th-century destination, and anyway, everybody sells airline tickets nowadays. What's an airfare search site to do?
If you're CheapFlights.com, the answer is to start selling long-distance flights. Really long-distance flights. Flights to outer space.
No, you can't get to Mars by commercial airliner yet. But go to www.cheapflights.com, click on the "O" in their alphabet and pick "Outer Space" as your destination, and you'll find 11 travel options that all sort of have something to do with venturing beyond this fragile sphere we call home.
Cheapflights' space flights aren't cheap, but they're for real. They come from Space Adventures, the company that flew space tourists Dennis Tito and Mark Shuttleworth to the International Space Station in 2001 and 2002. The price: a cool $20 million.
Non-multimillionaires can pick the next option down, a flight in a Russian MIG-25 fighter jet. Those planes go to up to 16 miles in the sky, which is at least nearer space than your standard airline flight. (Normal flights top out at 7 miles or so; the Concorde, when it was still in use, maxed out at 11.) That'll run you $19,000, a relative bargain. You can also use 275,000 US Airways frequent flyer miles and $8,000 -- finally, something to do with all those miles before US Airways goes under! (Just joking, US Airways. We've loved your low fares recently and wish you the best.)
A four-day package including zero-gravity flights from Space Adventures (you don't go all that high, but you do float around) runs $6,995 at www.spaceadventures.com/steps/zerog/details. You can pick that up with a quarter-million US Airways miles and $2,000, too.
Living up to their name, Cheapflights also sells "discount" options from Atlas Aerospace, a Russian company with a strangely hilarious Web site and a pedigree we couldn't track down. They'll shave $100 off Space Adventures' zero-g flight price, but hey, we say if you're going to blow seven grand, go with the big name.
Most Frommer's readers will have to keep dreaming. For the earthbound among us, Cheapflights suggests Space Camp or a Disney park pass, where you can ride Space Mountain or the new Mission: SPACE. Until Southwest starts flying to theme parks on the moon, those will have to do.
Have a question or comment on this article. We'd love to hear from you on our Air (Space?) Travel Message Boards today.