Clowning in Space

I'm a big fan of Cirque du Soleil so I'll be paying close attention this week as the first clown rides his rocket propelled unicycle off into space.

From Boing Boing and MSNBC...

Space history will be made this week: the first clown launched into orbit. Canadian billionaire Guy Laliberté, the circus entrepreneur behind Cirque du Soleil, was once a street performer. Now he's a space performer.

The Quebec native, who started out in the entertainment industry as a street performer and now has a personal fortune valued at $2.5 billion, said the mission was already serving multiple goals, ranging from raising awareness about water issues to promoting space travel, publicizing One Drop and Cirque du Soleil - and getting a healthy dose of adventure in the process.

He said he's wanted to go into space ever since he witnessed the Apollo 11 moon landing on television 40 years ago, when Laliberte was on the verge of turning 10. "I then realized and I started to believe that fairy tales were possible," he told reporters.

He said he probably wouldn't engage in any acrobatics outside the usual zero-gravity maneuvers during his trip to space, and noted that "I can't breathe fire up there." But he said that he would probably wear his clown nose and would try to persuade fellow spacefliers to wear clown noses as well.