Posted on 08/15/2005 10:15:54 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Got a spare $100 million? And a hankering to witness an Earthrise? Space Adventures Ltd. is offering to help.
The Alexandria, Va.-based space tourism company recently announced plans to provide scenic trips around the moon and back, using modified Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
In a wrinkle on the old Cold War rivalry, a private sector space race could crop up pitting Russian entrepreneurs against people such as Mojave's Burt Rutan, who has contracted to build a fleet of private industry rocket ships to carry tourists into space.
The first moon tourist trek, dubbed DSE-Alpha, could take place as soon as 2008, according to the Virginia company.
Last year, the Burt Rutan-designed SpaceShipOne claimed the $10 million Ansari X Prize for successfully completing two manned spaceflights to the outer edge of the Earth's atmosphere within two weeks. The event officially set off the emerging realm of commercial space travel for the masses.
Last month, Virgin CEO Sir Richard Branson and Rutan's Mojave-based Scaled Composites announced a joint venture to produce commercial spacecraft for the burgeoning industry.
The Spaceship Company's first customer is Branson's Virgin Galactic spaceline, which plans to sell suborbital spaceflights starting at $200,000 a ticket.
Space Adventures is teaming with the Federal Space Agency of the Russian Federation and the Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, entities with which the company has a long-standing relationship for providing trips to the international space station for wealthy space tourists.
The plan is to use a Soyuz spacecraft, piloted by a Russian cosmonaut, for a trek into orbit, where it will meet up with a booster rocket to propel the spacecraft around the far side of the moon. The Soyuz, with its passengers, would circle behind the moon, then return to earth.
The spacecraft proposed for this mission is a modern version of one the Soviet Union originally intended for manned lunar missions at the height of the space race.
Two seats, priced at $100 million each, are available for the DSE-Alpha mission.
According to a Space Adventures release, the company has identified more than a thousand people worldwide who have the financial resources to participate in an expedition to the moon.
"We have recently spoken with a few of these prospective clients and they are interested and eager to learn more. With this level of interest and enthusiasm, I have no doubt that we'll launch DSE-Alpha by 2010," said Eric Anderson, president and CEO of Space Adventures. Eventually, the company plans trips that would land astronauts on the lunar surface, something done only six times in the past, all during NASA's Apollo program.
The last man to walk on the moon was Apollo 17 commander Gene Cernan, in December 1972.
Space Adventures' announcement is the latest in a growing list of commercial space tourism endeavors.
Space Adventures has arranged two other space tourist trips, with a third in the works for this fall.
Liability insurance would be a severe impediment to space tourism. Waivers will be allowed until there is an accident, then it's over.
I imagine the shareholders of some mega corporation would be incensed if the founder and key brain behind their success would get stuck in orbit around the moon for the next two hundred years.
I imagine the shareholders of some mega corporation would be incensed if the founder and key brain behind their success would get stuck in orbit around the moon for the next two hundred years.
There is an unlimited supply of Cindy Sheehan types and those who dump McDonalds coffee in their lap.
Moonbase Alpha? Space 1999 ping...
you're on a roll! :')
Rutan talks of future of space
Valley Press on | Wednesday, July 27 | ALLISON GATLIN
Posted on 07/27/2005 12:08:43 PM PDT by BenLurkin
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