WMARTIN@OFFICE-8@sri-unix (11/22/82)
From: WMartin at Office-8 (Will Martin) Received my JS&A catalog and have more info on the "shuttle passenger" contest/lottery/whatever: It doesn't cost anything to enter. If you don't want to buy the poster and certificate, you just send in your name and address to get notified when they have more concrete information. (If you don't buy anything, I don't know how carefully they will preserve this name & address, but who knows...?) The certificate is a thing with your name that says you have a reservation for consideration on the first passenger flight, plus various fine print which legally absolves them from doing anything. The poster is a silly-looking picture of a bunch of planets hanging in space, all close together in a totally unrealistic and impossible manner. Poster and certificate are $30, $20 if you buy anything else, too. They look to me to be worth something less than $2.00, actually... OK, so what do you get if you "win"? Reading the catalog page and picking out the real meaning from the verbiage, it looks like you get a chance to spend upwards of $5,000 to pay your way. They compare it to the cost of an "around-the-world" tour (which it is, actually, I guess...). This factor was not mentioned to me by the person on the phone when I asked them about it, nor was it in the news items I heard or read. All in all, it sounds much like a scheme to sell overpriced posters... Disillusionedly, Will Martin