Quote:
Originally Posted by glenc
"The company said it would carry up to 30 passengers at a time and travel at a speed of 200 kilometres per hour for a week ... "
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Hi Glenn,
Those of us who work in office towers in the city will be familiar with the
normal elevator decorum where one enters the lift, briefly acknowledges one's
fellow passengers with a quick "Good morning" before quickly averting one's
gaze away from one's fellow passengers and instead focusing on the indicator
showing what floor number the lift is on.
A quick glance around usually reveals fellow occupants are either doing the
same, or intent on looking at messages on their Blackberries or sipping
the froth off a cappuccino in a paper cup that they purchased from the ground floor
coffee shop.
Now imagine a week's long elevator ride. After the second day, you build
up the gumption to break the awkward silence with something like, "Nice weather we
have been having lately", only to look back and get an icy suspicious glare from
one's fellow occupants. Elevator decorum has clearly been broken and
their Blackberry sessions have been interrupted. One of them just gives a bigger
slurp on their cappuccino pretending they did not hear. Worse of all, not until a couple
of your fellow occupants whisper to each other in a foreign language that you remember that
you began this elevator ride in a foreign country and that those around you may not
have even understood a word you said. Despite the cramped conditions in the
lift, everyone moves back from you just that little more, creating a little space
around you.
Such will be the perils of future manned space flight.
.
