Comments on: Space Adventures planning for lunar tourism

By: s2redux

s2redux — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:09:00 +0000

Exactly! With any luck, by the time Carnival is booking similar cruises the price will be down to something affordable like $35 million, and I’ll be able to coax the captain into a Luna Park flyover (“the happiest place orbiting Earth”). Then, just a small bribe for the radio operator to tune in Whalers on the Moon on the UHF, and my bucket list is complete. What’s the worst that could happen?

By: obeyken

obeyken — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:05:00 +0000

TMA = “too much affluence”

By: OtherMichael

OtherMichael — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:25:00 +0000

Isn’t that kind of the point? Get the rich bozos to subsidize it, so that the technology can be developed and the price-point dropped to a reasonable level?

Like those rich bozos that paid thousands of dollars for the first-generation CD players?

By: cmdrfire

cmdrfire — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:48:00 +0000

Yes. “Deep Space” refers to anywhere beyond Earth orbit – the only humans to have been into deep space are the Apollo astronauts.

By: Buddy Bradley

Buddy Bradley — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 02:43:00 +0000

um, hasn’t anyone noticed that this video is a pitch for money? “I want you to help me… on behalf of all of mankind.”

yeah right, those rich bozos can pay for their own private trips. I won’t be subsidizing it, thanks.

By: AnthonyC

AnthonyC — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 02:33:00 +0000

Given that no humans have gone past low earth orbit in ~40 years, yes.

By: KBert

KBert — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:49:00 +0000

Thanks for the clarification, makes sense.

By: thermoplasticity

thermoplasticity — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:39:00 +0000

Ha ha- damn right!

By: thermoplasticity

thermoplasticity — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:38:00 +0000

Oh I know that photo, I was playing ‘conspiracy advocate’ – in which one could also say that that photo comes to us after extensive filtering and photoshopping so we don’t see whatever they wouldn’t want us to see there. But actually going there in person poses a problem for that.
This is all just fun speculation.

By: pgt

pgt — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:12:00 +0000

Kbert: In some senses, it *is* ‘deep space’. It’s beyond the Earths’s magnetic field, which shields low orbit from solar radiation (eg, the ISS). Flight outside that shield is risky, since a solar storm at the wrong time could kill you, or make you very, very sick. The Apollo astronauts were taking a significant risk.

This is a problem which will need to be solved if we’re ever going to have a chance for manned missions to other planets.

pgt

By: angusm

angusm — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:05:00 +0000

“There is no dark side of the moon, really. As a matter of fact it’s all dark.”

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:04:00 +0000

A mis-adventure fraught with potential for unmitigated disaster :)

The real money comes from the betting windows by the viewing area.

By: EvilTerran

EvilTerran — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:53:00 +0000

Previous space tourism flights have been hitching a ride on a mission that was going up anyway, AFAIK. This looks like it’s a launch especially for the paying customers, which would be the first of that kind — in other words, historic.

As Arclight says below, this is a step towards further, more generally useful, space-related developments in the future.

By: Arclight

Arclight — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:45:00 +0000

A) You mean the far side of the moon.
B) Look at this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Moon_Farside_LRO.jpg

By: thermoplasticity

thermoplasticity — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:40:00 +0000

Hmm, just for fun I’m going to play conspiracy theorists advocate and bet that NASA and probably a few other “organizations” wouldn’t want anyone getting a look at the dark side of the moon.

By: figurative

figurative — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:39:00 +0000

Well, I find it ironic that he called Soyuz the greatest spacecraft ever. He could have said…

“One of the greatest…”
“Historical…”
“Groundbreaking…”
“Reliable…”

Or any other number of realistic descriptors. But to call it the greatest ever just smacks of boosterism and vacuous cheerleading for his hardware providers.

I suspect most fair minded space enthusiasts would rightly claim that the Lunar Module (the first real manned space fairing vehicle) to be the greatest.

By: Arclight

Arclight — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:28:00 +0000

Why all the anger and bitterness in the comments? This would be an incredibly cool thing to do, and may help open space for further development in the future.

By: Mike Norman

Mike Norman — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:25:00 +0000

I find it a little ironic that someone with the user name “figurative” had that particular complaint about Mr. Anderson’s use of the phrase “greatest spacecraft ever.”

By: figurative

figurative — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:21:00 +0000

Eric, sorry but the Soyuz is not the greatest spacecraft ever. You really jumped the shark with that comment and it ruined your entire pitch.

By: angusm

angusm — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:02:00 +0000

I like the way that he speaks in such stirring terms of the project, calling it a “historic mission”, rather than “sending very very rich people on a jaunt around the moon”.

I must remember to refer to my next vacation as a “mission”.

By: OtherMichael

OtherMichael — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:49:00 +0000

And they got PAID for it.

:::sigh:::

Always the 99%, and never the one….

By: Ryan_T_H

Ryan_T_H — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:42:00 +0000

Well, it only takes two

By: Noctilucent Studios

Noctilucent Studios — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:35:00 +0000

Come on Powerball!!

3 of the original Apollo astronauts have made this trip twice: Young, Lovell and Cernan. With Young and Cernan later landing for a bit of a walkabout.

By: Mr. Spocko

Mr. Spocko — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:31:00 +0000

“Star City, we have a problem. Our commander has had a heart attack or something and died. What do we do now? I’m a hedge fund manager not an astronaut!”

By: KaiBeezy

KaiBeezy — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:29:00 +0000

$150m is sure a lot of cabbage – previous space tourism flights were all $20m-$35m

sure, the moon is a harsh mistress, but how many people will be able to come up with the fare? net worth of the space tourists has been in the $100s-of-millions to single-digit billions, and if i had a billion i’d be pretty tempted, but if i *only* had $250m?

By: cmholm

cmholm — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:25:00 +0000

In essence, Mr. Anderson wants $150m to send you on a replay of the 1968 Zond 5 free return trajectory, the benefit being that the mission wouldn’t require anything in the way of navigation to get home, the risk being a ballistic 20G re-entry if the crew screws the pooch on the end game.

By: Art

Art — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:22:00 +0000

A mis-adventure fraught with potential for unmitigated disaster :)

By: KBert

KBert — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:15:00 +0000

Our moon is deep space?

By: sweetcraspy

sweetcraspy — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:10:00 +0000

Drome is such a fantastic word.

By: alexminev

alexminev — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:04:00 +0000

Have these people actually done test flights? It sounds too risky, but I agree with Roy…good way to get rid off the 1%