2006 archives

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December 24, 2006 by admin

Outside | December 2006

The Zero-G Spot Download PDF

Michael Behar has a simple fantasy: to be the first man on the planet to join the 100-mile-high club. But as he discovers in his hot pursuit of the big bang, he’s hardly alone. In fact, cosmic copulation has become the hottest craze since the Kama Sutra.

A couple of months ago, I was late-night channel-surfing and caught the tail end of Moonraker, the campy old James Bond flick in which Agent 007 both saves the world and enjoys zero-gravity sex with Dr. Holly Goodhead. (Nice day at the office.) As they embraced in a free-floating tumble, I realized something very important: I wanna do that.

You see, I have always been a space geek. So having sex above the stratosphere has long been on my list of adventure goals. But until recently, all I could do was dream. These days—thanks to the burgeoning space-tourism industry—the concept of the 100-mile-high club is starting to seem seriously feasible. Continue reading →

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November 24, 2006 by admin

Air & Space | October/November 2006

The Ground Download PDF

Astronauts get the glory, but flight directors run the show.

Michael Moses remembers feeling giddy that day in February 2005 as he walked into chief flight director Milt Heflin’s office at NASA’s Johnson Space Flight Center in Houston to accept his new job. Among space engineers, becoming a flight director is a crowning career achievement, and Moses half-expected Heflin, known as Uncle Milty, to give a round of high-fives to the nine newly selected directors gathered in the room. But Heflin’s words were sober. “We got an hour-long lecture that this is dangerous business, that we are on the pointy end of the sword, and that if we screw up, somebody dies,” Moses recalls.

Not exactly welcoming, the lecture at least had an impact. “That night I hardly slept,” says Richard Jones, who like Moses had worked for years in mission control before being promoted to flight director. Another new flight director, Holly Ridings, whose previous job in mission control had been monitoring the attitude of the International Space Station (ISS) in orbit, says that now, “every time I sit down in the flight director chair, there is a little piece of my mind that thinks, ‘If things go really wrong today, the U.S. space program could be over—or at least grounded for a very long time.'” Continue reading →

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October 20, 2006 by admin

Outside | October 2006

Windsurfing Has Been Canceled Download PDF

So say Matt Nuzzo and Trip Forman, the founders of Real Kiteboarding, who are channeling Jake Burton and trying to turn their breezy passion into the next action-sport phenomenon. Michael Behar joins the believers on a rum-soaked Caribbean cruise to find out: Is kiteboarding the new snowboardoing?

I’m about to go for the ride of my life. It’s February, and I’ve been in the British Virgin Islands for five days with Trip Forman and Matt Nuzzo, founders of the Cape Hatteras, North Carolina-based Real Kiteboarding. The duo has recently teamed up with charter-yacht juggernaut the Moorings to offer a weeklong kiteboarding cruise in the BVIs. Their first official trip will be in December, but I’m on their shakedown sail, an informal preview that’s part scouting mission, part Faustian flotilla. Within these hundreds of miles of Caribbean perfection—where warm and consistent trade winds swirl across deserted beaches and secluded bays—our aim is simple: Eat like royalty, drink like rock stars, and kite our asses off. Continue reading →

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October 1, 2006 by admin

Outside | Fall/Winter 2006

A New Shining Path Download PDF

While thousands of trekkers swarm the Inca Trail, Machu Picchu’s Salcantay Route offers better views, deluxe digs, and splendid isolation.”

It’s early may and I’m trekking to Machu Picchu with Enrique Umbert, a 57-year-old Peruvian commodities trader who just confessed to me that his passion for the Andes “is like a love affair with a beautiful woman.” I can see the attraction: Directly in front of us are Humantay and Salcantay, dueling ice-clad peaks, 19,412 and 20,574 feet tall, respectively. Gravity-defying glaciers cling to their summits, and every so often a tractor-size slab of ice calves off and triggers a thundering avalanche into a distant ravine. The twin massifs frame a radiant half-mile-wide meadow called Soraypampa, our campsite for the night and the starting point of the spectacular 30-mile Inca path called the Salcantay Route, a little-known, backdoor way to Machu Picchu. Continue reading →

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July 24, 2006 by admin

Men’s Journal | July 2006

Trekking Virgin Cloud Forest in Costa Rica Download PDF

If you think all the authentic adventures in Costa Rica have been packaged and polished to death, think again. Welcome to the jungle.   

“He’s not far ahead,” declares my trekking guide, a lanky, wiry haired 26-year-old Costa Rican named Andre’s Vargas, as he plods up a switchback in the jungle.

Who, exactly, is he?” I ask.

“Look down,” says Vargas, pointing to a foot-wide hoofprint in the muddy trail.

“What the hell is that?”

“Fresh tracks, from a tapir,” he says.

“A what?” Judging from the colossal print I imagine a wild boar on steroids and wonder if the machete we’ve packed is within easy reach.

A tapir, Vargas explains, is, in fact, a piglike mamal indigenous to Southeast Asia and Central and South America. It looks almost prehistoric: part anteater, part hippo. A full-grown adult stands three feet tall at its shoulders, measures six feet long, and can weigh almost Loco pounds. They are shy, nocturnal creatures that normally steer clear of humans and other predators, which in Costa Rica include pumas, jaguars, and am. But if you startle a tapir—particularly a female with calves—expect a fight, Vargas says. With its powerful snout the beast will slam you onto the ground, then administer a vicious stomping with its massive hooves. Continue reading →

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March 21, 2006 by admin

Business 2.0 | March 2006

Cashing In On the Red Planet Download PDF

To land humans on the Red Planet, NASA will need new equipment, fresh thinking, and advanced technology. These companies are preparing for mankind’s next giant leap.

Attention, people of Earth: We are going to Mars. This is no sci-fi fantasy; for the past two years, NASA has been gearing up to meet the Bush administration’s goal of landing humans on Mars by around 2030. The agency plans to set up a base on the Moon by 2020 to act as a staging area; that effort alone is projected to cost at least $104 billion. Throw in the round-trip voyage to Mars, and John Edwards, space systems analyst at Forecast International, estimates that the total cost of the program will top $400 billion—making it history’s largest government-backed science project. Continue reading →

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February 24, 2006 by admin

National Geographic Adventure | February 2006

Training 2.0 Download PDF

Web-based coaches are out to hook everyday athletes with pumped-up new features. Should we take the bait?

Last summer I took up kiteboarding—a sport not unlike windsurfing, only the board is smaller and the sail is a parabolic kite you fly from 65-foot lines. After my first few sessions, I learned that (a.) head-to-toe lactic-acid paralysis strikes even those athletes whose primary concern is staying upright and (b.) if I wanted to survive a week-long kiting trip in Mexico, I needed help getting up to speed.

Online coaching sites have been around since the late 1990s, but until recently they’ve mainly targeted hard-core triathletes and marathoners looking to better their personal records. Today, however, sites such as GymAmerica.com and Carmichael Training Systems (www.trainright.com) are rolling out streaming video, personalized nutrition analysis, and increased “human contact” to lure average folks with tight schedules and diverse interests. For me, a travel junkie, going virtual is a no-brainer—the Web is everywhere, and so, too, will be my trainer. I just hope I won’t be stuck with a one-size-fits-all program that keeps me on the losing end of a tug-of-war with my kite. Continue reading →