{"id":501,"date":"2009-11-08T05:19:18","date_gmt":"2009-11-08T05:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/?p=501"},"modified":"2009-11-08T05:19:18","modified_gmt":"2009-11-08T05:19:18","slug":"is-the-media-clowning-around","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/space-flight\/is-the-media-clowning-around.php","title":{"rendered":"Is the media clowning around?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tomorrow morning a Soyuz rocket is scheduled to launch to the ISS a NASA astronaut, Roskosmos cosmonaut, and a space tourist, Guy Laliberté. Or rather, a clown, Guy Laliberté. That’s based on some of the recent media coverage, where Laliberté is almost exclusively referred to, in the headline or early in the story, as a clown. Examples range from Russia Today<\/a> and RIA Novosti<\/a> to SPACE.com<\/a> and the BBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But is that a fair—or useful—description? Yes, he has a predilection for red clown noses and has promised to tickle fellow ISS crew members as they sleep<\/a>, but calling him a clown makes it all seem a bit too<\/em> silly. After all, he isn’t a clown full-time: he owns and operates a major entertainment company, Cirque du Soleil, that has made him a billionaire. The BBC, at least, calls him a “circus entrepreneur”—after calling him a “space clown” in the headline—which seems a more accurate description of him.<\/p>\n

Also, he’s stated that he’s not going into space for clowning around or entertainment alone: he plans to, in effect, MC a global concert called the “Poetic Social Mission” to raise awareness about the needs for clean water. Just today Cirque du Soleil announced additions to the roster of participants<\/a>, from actor Matthew McConaughey to singer Joss Stone. IT would seem that, in organizing this event, Laliberté isn’t clowning around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tomorrow morning a Soyuz rocket is scheduled to launch to the ISS a NASA astronaut, Roskosmos cosmonaut, and a space tourist, Guy Laliberté. Or rather, a clown, Guy Laliberté. That’s based on some of the recent media coverage, where Laliberté … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space-flight"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}