James Cameron Heads To Outer Space, Maybe

The story is plausibly implausible. Cameron is incredibly wealthy and adventurous (main extracurricular activity: deep sea diving), but the NewsCore piece says his looming take-off is "rumored" and fails to cite any specific source. Spokespeople for both Space Adventures and James Cameron's company refused to confirm to NewsCore that the director would be on board the flight, which is set to depart in 2015.

Confirmation or no, this news means that space tourism is already reaching its Willy Wonka phase. The whole world waits with bated breath to see who gets the next ticket.

Cameron has the star power to make lunar orbit the new Chateau Marmont, meaning that the Violet Beauregardes of Hollywood will soon be moon-bound. But what of the rest of us? Where is our Golden Ticket?

7-Eleven apparently. Last week, the convenience store announced a promotion through Foursquare that will make people who check-in while buying Slurpees eligible to win a Space Adventures flight.
But the promotion is a bit of a hoax. While winners will climb aboard Boeing 727s and experience zero-gravity, their sudden weightlessness will be the product of their plane's parabolic flight path not of actually being in space.

The cheapest true space ticket being offered at the moment goes for $200,000 and will get you aboard Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo. Flights from Branson's spaceport in New Mexico are scheduled to begin later this year, but the spaceport itself opened to tourists last month.

So we're all going to have to wait to join Mr. Cameron until we direct our own box office hit, which should probably be named " Virgin Space Adventures II."