I’m going to Space with Virgin Galactic!!!

After months of negotiations and meetings, I am happy and proud to announce that I will be the first blogger in the Virgin Galactic Blogger in Space Program!!!

Bloggers in Space (BS) is the brain child of Sir. Richard Branson who was looking for ways to promote his new venture, Virgin Galactic. I was contacted back in November by Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides and head of marketing Susan Newsam about the possibility of blogging from space. Needless to say, they had me at “space”!

If you aren’t aware of Virgin Galactic, it was created after aviation designer Burt Rutan won the $10,000,000 Ansari X PRIZE by placing a privately created spacecraft in a suborbital space flight.

Over the last several months we went back and forth about ideas for the BS program, the technical challenges of blogging in space, what we hoped to achieve with BS. After solidifying a set of goals for the BS program I then made a secret visit last January to the Virgin Galactic Spaceport in New Mexico. I received a tour of the facility (still under construction) and was able to learn more about the craft that was going to be flying me into space. Unfortunately, for security reasons, I was not allowed to take photos.

My flight will be taking off sometime in late 2012 or early 2013 once more test flights and the inaugural flights have taken place.

I’ll obviously be blogging much more about it over the next two years, but I can announce what the mission objectives are at this point. During the six minutes of weightlessness, I’ll have during the flight, I’ll be using a specially made iPhone to do the following:

  • Update my website with a blog post from space
  • Sent out a tweet from space
  • Check in on Foursquare to earn the Space Badge
  • Check in on Gowalla to earn a special space pin
  • Leave a Yelp review of space
  • Update my Facebook status from space
  • Update my MySpace page from space
  • Update my Match.com profile from space
  • Leave a TripAdvisor review of space
  • Update my Friendster profile from space
  • Send a WUPHF from space
  • Update Google Buzz from space
  • Take an Instagram photo from space.
  • Upload a photo to Flickrfrom space
  • Record a YouTube video in space

We are confident that the BS program will usher in a new era in both space flight and social media.

While I will be the first blogger in space, there are already plans to have others follow in my footsteps. If you are a blogger and are interested in BS, just leave a comment below and you will be contacted by the appropriate parties.

Ad astra per aspera!

31 thoughts on “I’m going to Space with Virgin Galactic!!!”

  1. I read this way past April 1st and it still got me! lol. It would have been so cool if it had been real. I was going to ask how you were going to do all that in six minutes but the joke is on me! Again, good one!

  2. Awesome April Fool’s joke! You’ve given Virgin some food for thought, so maybe they’ll call you first if it becomes a reality.

  3. That was funny!! Almost as much a joke as the Virgin Galactic terrorist scam-shuttle itself, if they weren’t talking about flying those nuclear firebombs over Our American cities and Our American countryside. You can’t trust the brits, but after what they did in the Gulf you know they’re aiming to reduce Americas population down to an island of cowardly liars just like them.

  4. Well played, Gary.. you almost had me there.. and I so wish this wasn’t an April Fool’s day joke.. really want to see space travel become a more realistic possibility for tourists!

  5. Maybe I’m just a travel blog nerd, but this was my favorite April Fools joke! Given your insider status, do you know when that iPhone will be available to the general public? I now plan to be the first to make a great app for translating the aliens’ language. Thanks for the heads-up!

  6. You should add sending an email using Google Motions while under the influence of zero gravity to your six minute ‘to do’ list.

  7. Hopefully your space shot will take place in early April – I understand space is unbelievable at that time. (Actually, if anybody were to do this for real, Branson would probably be the one. I don’t see Rupert Murdoch doing this.)

  8. Wow! So amazing that we’ll be going together. We’ve covered the couple’s and you’ve covered the men’s slot who will be the female Blogger in Space I wonder?

  9. Aw man! I was so excited for you until I saw the continual use of BS program… The first thing I ever wanted to be as a child was an astronaut so I was ‘over the moon’ for your adventure… Really wish it wasn’t April Fool’s day. hahahaha

  10. That’s a lot of posting to accomplish in 6 minutes, while weightless for the first time, in space…

    Don’t forget to take a few multiple-exposure HDR photos at the same time! :-)

  11. Nice one Gary! Love the idea of Bloggers in Space – BS? It’s probably only a matter of time.
    But a great April Fool – looking forward to you picking up that Foursquare badge!

  12. I would blog from space in a heartbeat! I work with fb, twitter, wordpress, blogger, etc. I am an avid traveler and true nomad at heart! I study healing/wellness and would LOVE the opportunity to investigate the therapeutic effects of seeing/experiencing the macrocosm of global life.

  13. Haha, pretty convincing! Though, the fact that the program is abbreviated “BS” hints toward an April Fool’s joke… ;)

    That, and the fact that you would send a WUPHF from space. Haha! Love that.

  14. I’m thinking this is an April Fool’s joke? But you put so much time and thought into the post, you have me a bit baffled =)

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