“The world’s richest man Bill Gates is considering a possible flight into space, a Russian cosmonaut said from International Space Station Wednesday, citing Gates’ colleague, current space tourist Charles Simonyi,” AFP reports.
“‘Charles said that Bill Gates is also preparing to visit space,’ cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin told journalists during a video link-up from the space station, broadcast on state television Rossiya,” AFP reports.
AFP reports, “Simonyi, who made his fortune at Microsoft, is the fifth tourist to travel to the ISS, following the United States’ Dennis Tito in 2001 and Greg Olsen in 2005, South Africa’s Mark Shuttleworth in 2002, and a US citizen of Iranian origin, Anousheh Ansari in 2006. Space Adventures plans to expand its offerings next year to include a 100-million-dollar trip around the moon…”
Full article here.
One way, please — and take Ballmer with you, if they make rockets big enough. Now Billy can put his money where his mouth is and make sure that the onboard life support systems are run by Windows Vista. That’d give new meaning to “hasta la Vista, baby,” huh?
On second thought, leave Uncle Fester here. Someone’s gotta stay to go down with the Microsoftanic.
Man, you guys took all the good lines already! 🙁
I wonder how far MonkeyBoy could throw a chair zero gravity.
Always a follower/imitator — never a leader
Ground control to Major Bill,
Your PC’s dead, there’s no DLL
Can you reboot, Major Bill?
Can you reboot, Major Bill?
@scottm4321
Gates – But I have a blue screen with a whole bunch of cryptic code on my terminal?
Houston – We don’t know how to help you. Maybe you should have put Macs in instead.
Danger, Will Robinson, danger!
“We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is…hold the line, <muffled>what, the company that developed Windows? no, you’re right – that’s probably not the distinctiveness that we want. It was called Bob</muffled>. It’s OK, you’re free to go…
Good test – what could an empty brain in a vacuum possibly think about.
On order: extra small helmet with neck extension.
Do us all a favor, make the faceplate opaque from the outside.
There’s enough viruses in the ISS, but this would be a whopper.
Nerds in Space!
I hope for him the spacecraft is not running Windows…!
He wants to be the first human to get an exclusive licensing agreement with aliens in order to finally screw the human race once and for all.
Bartsimpsonhead…”Bill & Festers Excellent Adventure”
LOL…that’s funny!
Maybe Bill’s getting on a secret mission to investigate a mysterious black monolith seen orbiting Jupiter’s moon, Io?
Imagine his dissapointment when he discovers its an black alien iPod!
My God. It’s full of UNIX.
-d
MW: ‘science’
I have this image of Ballmer doing the Homer Simpson zero gravity thing where he’s eating potato chips while the Blue Danube Waltz plays in the background.
Wait, doesn’t he have to come back from space first?
“The Vista-controlled vehicle you are riding in has encountered a virus and is about to explode. Preparing to eject you into the cold vacuum of space. Cancel or Allow?”
The g’s experienced during lift off will stap his neck like a pencil.
There once was a guy called Bill,
Who went into space for a thrill
The rocket fell from the sky
Ground control heard a cry
Press Control, Alt delete before we’re landfill.
…this is tooooo easy
Groundcontrol has Vista….
10….9………..8…..uhhhhmm….7..?………uuuuhhmm….arrghh……6…maybe?……….uhmmm…..aarrghhhhhh….????…..help……….5…………………………………………………….cancel or allow?…………
so they never going to make it….
Not that Bill needs any of my money, but I’d gladly pay to have him and his OS sent into space with no return trajectory. Absolutely
@Gil
GATE: “I thought we wouldn’t need to upgrade to run Vista! BALMERRRR!!”
HOUSTON: “Balmer? Sorry Bill, that monkey went up years ago. Try that Control Alt Thingy again. Oh yeah, do you know anything about BIOS?”
Can’t he just wait until 2063? The year that ya’ll go warp speed and meet us Vulcans?
LL&P,
One of your better responses MacDaily…….
Baller can’t go though…….no room for the monkey dance. Plus, he’d wreck the inside of the space capsule throwing stuff.
Jim: well, in 1988 Russians had Buran flying and landing completely without human control — this is exactly because programmers were not like Gates’ colleagues at NASA which could not solve the task of fully computerized flights then and they still can not do it now. So Gates would be launched successfully in Soyuz. The real danger would be cosmonauts which spent much time at they work and homes fighting with various Windows versions.
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scottm4321: that should be Korolev, not Houston.
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The only way to shut off the rocket engines is to hit the launch button.