Trade six: Spaceflight?

No, your eyes don't deceive you, spaceflight could be our next One Pink Hairclip swap.

I am currently in delicate negotiations with Josh from Surrey, UK, who specialises in sending hi-tech weather balloons up into the very fringes of space, videoing the incredible journey and tracking the flight across the heavens using GPS.

He, in turn, would get the X Factor tickets.

If this comes off we could be sending the seventh swappers payload of choice 118,000 feet up and filming its epic progress.

Say, for instance, you own a pooperscooper company, you could send one into the cosmos and have footage of it with the curvature of the earth in the background - the first canine sanitary product in space and a home movie to prove it!
Now, the more astute and technically minded of you may argue that 118,000 feet up isn't strictly space, it's the stratosphere or ionosphere or some such. But having seen footage of a similar flight Josh did and witnessing the earth in all its glory, it's more than high enough  for me. Besides, there's no air to speak of up there and your eyes would probably pop out due to cosmic pressure and your blood would boil. If that ain't space then I'm a monkey's uncle.
I mentioned this possible trade to friends at work and they kind of wrinkled their brows and said, almost in unison: "What's the point?"
I'm sure that when Captain Cook approached the British Admiralty with plans of his epic journey to map the antipodes they didn't ask "what's the point?"

No, they furnished him with a trusty barque (old talk for boat), a few barrels of rum, a crew of pess-ganged men and cancelled all his home newspaper and milk deliveries for 20 years.
Fast forward a couple of centuries to President JFK telling the American people to buckle up for the giant leap into space.

No one questioned JFK's motives. Instead the Yanks dreamt of dressing in tin foil, eating pill 'meals' and generally gadding about like The Jetsons.

And no, it wasn't their fault that their national debt got in the way.
Indeed, we need innovators and visionaries like fresh-faced 21-year-old Josh from Surrey more than we need the nay-sayers. He is the future. And that's why we need that pooperscooper (or similar object) in space as soon as possible. Stay tuned and I'll bring you the latest.
Yours in spaceflight,
Graham

PS If you have something pretty light that you want to float sedately into space beneath a big balloon, email me on onepinkhairclip@hotmail.co.uk

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