Tourist Trips Around Moon

By: Michael Stevens
05/07/2011 11:15 AM ET

Tourist trips around moon in four years?

Tourist Trips Around Moon – It’s a growing space tourist industry that’s coming fast. In fact, the first travelers to be launched into space will happen at the end of 2015.

Lunar trips will be common in our lifetime. That’s a big leap after fifty years when the first American astronaut rocketed into space. It’s now going from government to commercial spaceflights.

Space Adventures, Virginia-based company, hopes to do just that. They are planning for trips and are one of the first firms to do so. They are now set to build a bigger spaceship than before.

The tourist company has brokered commercial rides to the International Space Station for the last 10 years under a partnership with Russia’s Federal Space Agency. It’s only a three-person Soyuz vehicle. They want to build an extra module to give customers more room during their moon voyage.

A cost for such an adventure is $150 million per passenger. Space Adventures already has one customer signed on for the circumlunar joyride and is in contract negotiations with a second. The first flight could occur as soon as the end of 2015, according to the company’s chairman Eric Anderson.

Despite a nine-figure ticket price, the firm has already signed up a passenger for a maiden lunar journey. And if it inks a second customer soon, the mission could launch trips within three to five years. “We need that second contract for the mission to go ahead,” said Space Adventures president Tom Shelley. “But we’re confident that we’ll be able to make an announcement about that mission later this year.”