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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." "
From TFA:Doesn't sound all that great, really...$100 mil for that? I can do that right now for free...in fact, I am doing that right now (sitting in my cramped cubicle, eating Ding-Dongs from the snack machine, and examining the cratered lunar crust.
Oh, and by the way,
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Warning: Dont buy this. The price is does not include a landing. You just fly around the moon and come back. It is clearly a rip off.
They can ask that Russian astrologer that sued over the Temple 1 probe for the 'moral damages'.
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
I find it odd that Russia is at the forefront of commercial space travel. I mean they are capable of it, but I somehow thought that by now a public company could have pulled it off already. NASA f'ing up space travel with it's politics and disillusioning some about it likely has not helped.
Just a boy doing unproffesional IT work that's way above his head.
does it include the return trip?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Oh damn, I don't even get to stand on it... One hundred million dollars - seems a little Dr. Evil-esque.
Once you're there getting back will cost another hundred million.
Didn't RTFA
1) Convice Bill to offer "one BILEEEON dollars" for a landing.
2) Get Russians to provide it - one way.
3) Profit!
www.eFax.com are spammers
I just have to get my plan to hold the world hostage with a giant "laser" off the ground.
insert inflammatory anti-microsoft comment here
They posted this idea before.
Looked extremely nice, but there are some problems with this...
Biggest stumblingblock: the heatshield is not up to the increased punishment it'll get when re-entering from a trans-luna trajectory instead of a deorbit from LEO...
But then again, that's only a matter of strenghthening the shield. But then again, that needs testing, and will add serious weight.
So they can't do this tomorrow, the hardware is not tried and tested... Yet...
It may not be easy to find someone willing to pay 100M$ for a trip around the moon. Isn't it waay easier to find 10M people in the world willing to pay 10$ to perhaps win a trip around the moon ? I know I would.
\u262D = \u5350
Can I get a discount if I lose a few pounds?
Seriously though, kids weigh far less and take up less space, what about a donation for a make-a-wish foundation candidate?
Unless you want to say, "Bakinour, we have a problem."
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
So do you get a bag of peanuts on your trip?
-Teiresias
Damn, I'd pay the $100M but I don't think my boss would let me take the week off.
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This shows how desperate Russia is becoming maintaining its space exploration capability. Russia has neither the rockets nor the spacecraft to support such an offer. I think it makes more sense for them to combine efforts with the EU going forward. The EU has no manned program, but good space technology and relatively deep pockets. Russia has well developed space technology but little funding. It would make an impressive combination.
an ill wind that blows no good
If you intended on paying the 100m, would you need to take one of those physical tests (the simpsons comes to mind...) that would make sure you were able to withstand the forces that come with space travel? I would think that it would be a prerequisite to go through tons of tests in order to actually go on a shuttle.
Either way, thats a shitload of money, but its also a once in a lifetime opportunity. (atleast if you are getting old already!) Some of us young folk will probably be able to take some "tours" for around 1 million or so within 20-30 years I assume (and hope). By then it will be safer as well, even if I had the money, I doubt I would do this, but give it 30 years or so and space travel will be a *bit* safer, and there may be actual tour shuttles available. so what are the limits? can a 70 year old man willing to pay 100mill do this? what about an obese 25 year old thats just waiting for a heart attack? do you have to be very physically fit? Inquiring minds want to know...
Maybe NASA could pay it? They haven't been to the moon for a while.
Larry Ellison, then?
Go somewhere random
Welcome to Crazy Ivan's Russian Experience!!! Everything is for sale, all offers considered!!!
Please choose one of the following from our "Government for sale" programs:
1) Drive a t-37 tank - $50,000
2) Fly a MiG - $200,000
3) Pilot Nuclear Submarine - $1,000,000
4) Fly to IIS - $20,000,000
5) Fly to Moon - $100,000,000
6) Kill a Chechnian - $50
7) Preside over Duma for a day - $10,000
Or anything else you want to do! Just name it and we'll stick a price on it.
TFA says the offer is to orbit the moon, but not land on it. An important distinction, I think.
-- Brian Berns
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
That's first class. For 50 Million Dollars, you can travel Economy, strapped to the outside of the craft as a 'pretend fuel pod.'
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
Larry Ellison is a wuss.
I'd say Richard Branson is more likely to go before Larry.
Live forever, or die trying.
$100 Million - is that first class or economy?
From TFA:
Space tourists will not land on its surface but will circle its dark side and orbit close enough to examine its cratered lunar crust. They would live in two cramped modules about three metres across and eat biscuits and food in tubes.
So to answer your question: Compared to most major airlines, you'd be going first class!
"Seller is A-one first rate! That really was the real moon right outside my window. Really the authentic item."
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
For $100 million, they better do better than just a pass around the moon!
:)
... (that is, if I had it).
For example, the Russians on board had better be some REALLY hot Russian babes (like those mail order brides they are always advertising)!
For $100 million, I'd want to be the first guy to have a three way in Space! (with 2 hot women - of course). I also want the exclusive rights to reproduce and sell the video
For that matter, would I be the first guy to have sex in Space?
I mean, seriously, if they're not landing on the moon, they had better give me something to do for two weeks. Two weeks in Space would get boring after the first few days if I had nothing to look forward to other than flying around the moon and (hopefully) landing (in one piece). They'd have to provide some serious entertainment for me to fork over that kind of cash
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
During the Cold War, the Soviets would have done this in a heartbeat, no matter what the cost, if they had the capability. Saying they can do it now, for only a hundred million dollars, when they have never done it before, just sounds untrue.
Yes the Russians build one of the best throw away capsules ever made. Yes they have done some wonderful things in space. But there is a big difference between Earth orbit and going to the Moon. Even if you're not landing there.
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.
It might be easier to find someone willing to pay that kind of money for a private, small but luxurious compartment, big enough for two, and a short, orbital or perhaps even suborbital trip with a couple of hours of weightlessness.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I still don't think it's as difficult as people think it is to get into orbit - or to the moon
Do you care to enlighten us mere mortals as to how you plan to accomplish this with $100 Million? Don't start talking about Space Ship One because even Burt Rutan has stated that the craft is not very useful outside of simply winning the X-Prize and providing valuable data for future designs, which in fact, must be radically different just to achieve orbit (and will also require substancial outside funding and investment, on the order of almost a billion dollars).
Please, take a basic physics class before you start telling people how it's not very difficult to get to orbit or the moon.
So... I click on the moon.google.com link you posted.
Nice, nice... not thrilling, but nice... then I zoomed in on the Apollo 11 landing site. Still nice, not thrilling but nice...
so I zoomed in all the way to see how good the resolution gets.
All of the sudden... Yikes! the moon turned yellow and looked like cheese... Not surrender monkey Brie or boardshead gouda either but aparantly the surface is clearly some type of swiss cheese.
I was not prepared for this revelation! My day has now been wrecked by the likes of the google crew...
Prospecting Stinks. Stop Wasting Time on Cold Calling.
See Tidal Locking
The hook is that beverage service is not even included. By day 3, they expect to be able to charge you another $100 million for each can of Coke. And it won't even be real Coke, just some weird Uzbekistan knockoff named 'Koke'.
(Please imagine unintelligible Cyrillic characters between quotes. I am poor and cannot afford to waste my few precious real Cyrillic characters in Slashdot posts.)
Serving your airship needs since 1995.
Please, take a basic physics class before you start telling people how it's not very difficult to get to orbit or the moon.
No, take a very advanced one.
Actually, this is a neat idea on the whole. A time-limited lotto that was run by some formal lottery organization (not some random joe internet user like yourself... I'm sorry, but I have know idea who you are at the moment) where if not enough money was raised to cover the costs of the launch would then be donated to some "worthy" cause, or even a more conventional lotto drawing would occur + a trip to space (to orbit if $10 million were raised, or on Virgin Galactic if > $1 million were raised) if not enough money were raised through something like this.
Lotteries of this nature were proposed by many early Science Fiction authors, including Heinlein and Asimov. The trick is to figure out how to tell the scam artists from legitimate operations.
They charge you $200 Million to bring you back.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
There's an article over on MSNBC with more info about the moon trip proposal. It turns out that the mission design is basically the same one that Constellation Services International, a small California space firm, proposed to the Russians last year. It seems that the Russians have just taken the proposal and blown off CSI. You can see the older article about CSI's design (with a diagram showing how it'll work) here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6558855/
From the newer article:
NBC News space analyst James Oberg wrote about the Lunar Express concept eight months ago: As laid out by Constellation Services International's Charles Miller, the passenger would first be brought up to the international space station aboard a modified Russian Soyuz craft. Then the Soyuz would make a rendezvous with a booster-equipped logistics module that has been sent into orbit separately. The beefed-up craft would make an elongated figure-8 course around the moon - not landing there, but slingshotting around to return to Earth.
Oberg was amazingly prescient when he wrote, "The obvious question is what would prevent the Russians, or some other international space business, from simply stealing the idea and blowing off Miller and his associates."
In an e-mail exchange with Oberg, Miller was "sorry to say" that CSI was not involved in the Russian round-the-moon project, reported by Moscow-based Channel 1 (in Russian) as well as the RIA Novosti news service.
Instead, the news reports say that Russia's Federal Space Agency and Energia, the prime contractor for much of the country's space hardware, are working on the project. Channel 1 says proceeds from the two-week, $100 million tour package would go toward building Russia's next-generation spaceship, the Kliper.
China, while having the ability to send astronauts to orbit (don't get me on the taikonaut issue), don't have the man-rated heavy lift experience that the Russians have. The ESA doesn't even have manned spaceflight experience at all, unless you count the joint ESA/NASA flights of the Space Shuttle... and even that was largly American infrastructure that put them into orbit.
So far, in order to pull something like this off, it is either the Russians or NASA. 10 years from now that may be a totally different story, but there is a huge leap to go from sub-orbital (like Scaled Composites) to orbit, and an even larger leap to go from LEO to lunar orbit.
The neat thing is that going from LEO to lunar orbit is not nearly as complex as going from sub-orbital to LEO. And lunar orbits to lunar landings are not too much more complex either.
Please, take a basic physics class before you start telling people how it's not very difficult to get to orbit or the moon.
I believe economics is the more appropriate expertise to cite when determining cost.
The physics is well understood, the engineering is a bit more complicated (but has already been done if you are to believe NASA and the Kremlin), so the big costs at this point are materials, assembly and fuel... oh and don't forget all the beaurocrats you have to feed in order to get launch approval.
Thanks for the reality check. The United States has forgotten just how many people died to explore and settle North America. Being on the cutting edge is dangerous. But there are huge rewards for the successful and huge payoffs to those of us left behind. Those pioneers that take the big risks expand our envelope and we get huge benefits from that.
I bet they could find 1 million people willing to pay for a $100 lottery ticket. Or 5 million who would pay for a $20 lottery ticket. Sounds like a good deal to me... I'd have a better chance of orbiting the moon that winning the state lottery.
Zonds they shot to space in late 60s went around the moon and landed at Indian ocean in one piece. Zonds were identical to Soyuz crafts but unmanned. Conspiracy theorists claimed that they were actually manned Soyuz crafts but cosmonauts had expired on the way. See here or just google zond and moon.
I don't know if you have children. But I would ensure that, upon my passing, they would: -have enough money to ensure that they do not live in want of anything -have enough money to donate to charities or to support ideas of their own choosing -have enough cash flow to maintain the estates I will leave them
In other words you want to raise another Paris Hilton? Not for me thanks, if I have kids I want them to be decent human beings who earn their own way in life, not spoilt brats living on trust funds, living the high life without having earnt it. It's the 21st century now, not Medieval Feudalism. I come from a country where people even inherit power, never mind estates.
I'm all in favour of a 100% inheritance tax over a certain amount, say 100k. And throw the Royal family out on the street.
As for your friends and family, they'll soon lose interest in you once the gravy train dries up.