Rich guys have all the fun. They circumnavigate the Earth in balloons and experimental aircraft (Steve Fossett). They go to strip clubs, meet Anna Nichole Smith, marry her, bankroll her cosmetic surgery, die and have their estate settled by the Supreme Court (J. Howard Marshall). They fly planes, produce movies, date Bette Davis, become a recluse, wear tissue boxes as shoes and store their bodily fluids in jars (Howard Hughes).

According to the Associated Press, the source I turn to for news about rich guys, three tourists paid about $20 million each over the past couple of years to climb aboard a Russian rocket and blast off to the international space station, where they spent a week or so presumably floating around, drinking Tang and shouting, "Look! I see Uranus!"

I've always wanted to travel in space, to shake off these planetary shackles and soar into the majesty of the great beyond, to commune with the stars and eventually return to Earth, find a rich guy and say, "You flew around the world in a balloon with Anna Nichole Smith? Big freakin' deal! I went to space! Space, I tell ya!"

? Become an astronaut. Unfortunately, NASA has a tendency to accept only those applicants with an above-average intelligence and the ability to work well with others. The career aptitude test I took in high school indicated that I would be more successful as a crash-test dummy than an astronaut.

? Get beamed aboard an alien spacecraft while driving some lonely back road late at night, zipped across the galaxy and back, then deposited in the parking lot of the Sip-N-Go, disheveled and confused. This scenario is actually more plausible than a career as an astronaut, but I am uncomfortable with the probing that usually takes place during these reported occurrences.

? Use my superior scientific and mechanical abilities to construct a spaceship using the 181/2-horsepower engine from my riding lawn mower, a spare propane tank from the barbecue grill and parts of the nonfunctioning C-band satellite dish now staring blankly at the heavens like the world's biggest birdbath. Unfortunately, I don't have superior scientific and mechanical abilities.

The Associated Press, the source I turn to for news about space travel and Anna Nichole Smith, reports that more than a dozen companies are currently working on rockets that will someday take nonrich guys on short, inexpensive trips into space where they, too, will rave about Uranus.

Pocket change! Soon I can rocket through the stratosphere, whatever that is, breathing the same rarified canned air as Neil Armstrong and Buck Rogers, and all I have to do to pay for this grand adventure is sell my house and truck, and empty my daughter's college savings account and put her to work making sneakers in a Third World sweatshop.

But it will all be worth it, because I can return to Earth, write a book about my experience in space, sell the movie rights to the guy who played Doogie Howser and get rich.

Then I can circumnavigate the world in a balloon, bankroll additional cosmetic surgery for Anna Nichole Smith, become a recluse, wear tissue boxes as shoes and store my bodily fluids in jars.

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