Away From It All

MANNERS & MORALS

Manhattan's Hayden Planetarium was really only kidding. It wanted to show the public what was known about journeys into space; trips to the moon were no longer comic-book fantasies, said the planetarium, but a definite possibility--perhaps before the century is out. Tongue in cheek, the planetarium began taking reservations and faithfully promised to turn them over to the first interplanetary travel agency, when & if.

Applicants were to "check tour desired" --in the order of their distance: the moon (240,000 miles, 9 1/2 hours); Venus, Mars, Jupiter, or Saturn (790 million miles, 1,333 days). The planetarium's "Passenger Briefing" warned that the moon is no such warm romantic place as it might seem over Miami, but rather a chill, arid spot, covered with a layer of dustlike pumice several feet thick, where conversation would be impossible, climate problematical, and locomotion difficult. While working up to a speed of 3,621 m.p.h., those with high blood pressure might suffer momentary blackouts.

By last week, the planetarium had received more than 18,000 reservations and requests for information. A man from Munich, Germany wanted to build a hotel on the moon, and a bellhop from Marion, Ohio a skating rink on Venus. A New York fur broker asked about trapping rights; a radio cowboy saw a chance "to get in on the ground floor of radio business on Venus."

Sixth graders from a school in Santa Ana, envisioning an extension of Californianism, were "interested in opening a concession on the moon to supply hot dogs, Cokes, etc., to tourists." A Catholic missionary from West Pakistan, who had heard there is no water on the moon, proposed to carry some with him for baptizing the newborn he would meet. An un-celestial Cuban reserved seats for himself and two women "because if we might settle somewhere, it is better for the passengers to be mixed."

Interested by the volume of response, a psychologist made a study of some of the reservations. A few were patently gags, he decided, but most came from people who seemed to be tired of it all and thought the chance of escaping this sorry earth was no joke at all. A woman from Massachusetts was typical. "It would be heaven to get away from this busy earth," she wrote. "I honestly wish God would let me get away . . . and just go somewhere where it's nice and peaceful, good, safe, and secure."

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