A Private Flight Around The Moon For $150 Million US?

Just One ($150 Million) Seat Remains on Space Adventures' Lunar Flyb

Posted by: "Gerry" FILMIST@Mac.com   filmist

Fri Apr 29, 2011 6:37 am (PDT)

Just One ($150 Million) Seat Remains on Space Adventures' Lunar Flyby

One of the two available tickets on Space Adventures' planned 2015 flyby of the moon has been sold, astronaut Byron Lichtenberg confirmed at an MIT conference today. If you're sitting on a small fortune and want to see the far side of the moon, act fast before the last seat on the Soyuz spacecraft is gone.

BY ANDREW MOSEMAN

April 26, 2011 4:30 PM

If you've got $150 million to spare and want to take a trip around the moon, don't wait for much longer—just one of the two seats that private space firm Space Adventures is selling for a proposed lunar flyby remains. 

Byron Lichtenberg, a payload specialist aboard the space shuttle missions STS-9 and STS-45, noted this today at the MIT conference "Earth, Air, Ocean and Space: The Future of Exploration." The news that Space Adventures had sold one of the two nine-figure tickets came out quietly in January, when company CEO Eric Anderson mentioned it at a conference in Munich, Germany. Today, Lichtenberg, who had been in contact with the Space Adventures team, told a roomful of space pros, including astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Massimino, that the sale was definite, sending a murmur of excitement through the room. Lichtenberg confirmed the statement with PM Senior Editor Joe Pappalardo, who is reporting from the conference. 

Space Adventures, a Virginia-based company, has been planning a lunar flyby since 2005. It offered the two seats aboard a Russian-made Soyuz spacecraft that will fly around the moon in a mission scheduled for 2015. Anderson won't say who purchased the first $150 million ticket, but hinted that you'll know the person's name when you hear it. 

What could a potential space traveler expect if they purchased the last remaining seat on Space Adventures' moon flyby? The no-frills Soyuz TMA carries one pilot and two passengers. It launches on a three-stage rocket, and will require extra propulsion for a moon flyby. After the Soyuz is launched, a second launch will send a rocket booster into low Earth orbit to rendezvous with the Soyuz and provide the addition propellant. It's the extra fuel and equipment needed to travel a quarter of a million miles—as opposed to simply journeying to the International Space Station or into orbit—that causes the insanely high price of the lunar trip. 

Read more: 

Space Adventures Lunar Flyby - The Future of Exploration MIT Conference - Popular Mechanics 

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