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| Fly me to the moon? That'll be $100 million |
| 2005-08-10 |
| The ultimate honeymoon?? NEW YORK (Reuters) - Want to send someone over the moon? All it takes is $100 million. A U.S. company said on Wednesday it wants to send two tourists on a trip around the moon at a cost of $100 million per ticket. Space Adventures Ltd, which has already sent two civilians on separate trips into space, says it has researched and identified more than a thousand prospective customers with the necessary wealth for a moon shot as early as 2008. |
| Posted by:DanNY |
| #2 John, the old Soviet Union did send two-person capsules on an around-the-moon trajectory and back in the 60's. They were equipped with instrumented dummies and dummy life support. The capsule was a modified version of a Soyuz (i.e. no orbital module); the reentry forces were pretty high, so you'd want someone in reasonably good physical shape, and space was tight, so you'd probably want two really good friends for your customers... but they launched those missions from a single modified Proton. I don't know what Protons sell for these days, but the overhead cost of launching one is supposedly pretty cheap. I suspect the Russians *could* have done a manned moon surface mission way back when with multiple Proton launches, but they got too fixated on their super-booster based mission, and when they finally figured out they couldn't get the N-1 to work Apollo had already gotten there, and they figured it would be less embarrassing to not go and pretend they never wanted to. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-08-10 18:46 |
| #1 Energia can build a moon capable rocket with two person payload for 200 million dollars. Bull. Unless the trip is one way only. |
| Posted by: john 2005-08-10 16:07 |