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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...$100 mil for that? I can do that right now for free...in fact, I am doing that right now (sitting in my cramped cubicle, eating Ding-Dongs from the snack machine, and examining the cratered lunar crust.
Oh, and by the way,
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Warning: Dont buy this. The price is does not include a landing. You just fly around the moon and come back. It is clearly a rip off.
I find it odd that Russia is at the forefront of commercial space travel. I mean they are capable of it, but I somehow thought that by now a public company could have pulled it off already. NASA f'ing up space travel with it's politics and disillusioning some about it likely has not helped.
Just a boy doing unproffesional IT work that's way above his head.
does it include the return trip?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Once you're there getting back will cost another hundred million.
Didn't RTFA
1) Convice Bill to offer "one BILEEEON dollars" for a landing.
2) Get Russians to provide it - one way.
3) Profit!
www.eFax.com are spammers
It may not be easy to find someone willing to pay 100M$ 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
Unless you want to say, "Bakinour, we have a problem."
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
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
That's not... completely accurate.
The Soyuz capsule was designed to travel to the moon as the Zond variant. The system was tested in the late 1960s, using the same type of Proton boosted soyuz capsules to orbit the moon and return, and did so with animals aboard that survived.
But yes, other then being wrong in almost every other respect, you are correct when you say "They posted this idea before".
Maybe NASA could pay it? They haven't been to the moon for a while.
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.
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
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what about a donation for a make-a-wish foundation candidate?
Good idea. If the rocket explodes on the way up or the craft disintegrates on the round trip or burns up reentering the atmosphere we could just shrug and say "Hey, the kid was going to die anyway."
Trolling is a art,
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.