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A $100 Million Trip to the Moon
Kyusaku Natsume writes "Russia's federal space agency will offer a $100m trip to the moon. From the UK Guardian's article:" "We've had the necessary technology for many years, the only problem will be finding someone prepared to pay that much." "
They posted this idea before.
Looked extremely nice, but there are some problems with this...
Biggest stumblingblock: the heatshield is not up to the increased punishment it'll get when re-entering from a trans-luna trajectory instead of a deorbit from LEO...
But then again, that's only a matter of strenghthening the shield. But then again, that needs testing, and will add serious weight.
So they can't do this tomorrow, the hardware is not tried and tested... Yet...
but I somehow thought that by now a public company could have pulled it off alread - are you kidding? Imagine this: you start a company like that. Let's say you have 1000,000,000 USD as a starting capital. How much can you do for that money? What would it take? You can buy Russian Soyuz launch vehicles, but for that money can you have your own space station and a moon module capable of going around the moon and back to the station? What about the fuel for the moon station? The Russians have Protons and Zeniths, you would have to buy those. How many customers will you get? One every 2 years? How will you make money on that?
No, it's too early for any private company to even think about such things. The Russian space agency can only afford to do this because they have all the infrastructure for it: they have Soyuz and Proton and the space station.
You can't handle the truth.
Not so odd. The set-up cost of a space program (launch vechicle design, location, landing location, monitering center, etc.) is a very high sunk cost. Russia has it, built and paid for. So all they have to pay for is each launch, and ongoing maintenice. Since their budget has been cut, they have a strong incentive to find alternative funding.
In other words: They have the capablitly set up, and they have a reason. No one else has that: NASA is funded enough to keep going, and no one else has existing human-spaceflight capablity.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
The plaque left on the moon (affixed to the first LEM) reads as follows:
Interestingly, however, the United States (along with most spacefaring countries) has not ratified the 1979 Moon Treaty, which would basically prohibit any property rights on the moon (or other celestial bodies). So the door is still open for future ownership of lunar surface.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Space tourists will not land on its surface but will circle its dark side and orbit close enough to examine its cratered lunar crust. In fact you can see the dark side from Earth; just try to find the moon during the "new" phase. I think what they mean to say is the far side, which is never visible from Earth.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
The Russians have made it to the moon.
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/spacecraft_manned_l unar.html
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/spacecraft_planetar y_lunar.html
While there are considerable more failures than successes, the Russians have achieved lunar orbit and returned.
See Tidal Locking