Fly Me To The Moon
This is one of those "good news/bad news" stories. The good news is, for the first time in thirty-six years, human begins will orbit the moon (in 2008); the bad news, for Americans at least, is that it'll be what amounts to a Russian lunar taxi for hire:
Don't get me wrong; I would love to be a passenger on this trip, and there's nothing bad about the privatization of space travel. But as a long-time space buff, scifi dork, and patriotic American, it's more than a little galling to see the Russians providing lunar travel packages to the satellite we abandoned while the best we can do is broken-down low-orbit shuttles that leave behind trails of parts wherever they go and geostationary satellites that pump pop music to our car radios.
Rest assured, this "taxi" isn't cheap, although the aphorism is apt from a size perspective:
A hundred mil is a tad more than the income tax refunds most families sock away in their vacation funds every year. Though being crammed cheek-to-jowl inside a vehicle for a week does sound awfully familiar.
Still, seriously, leaving aside the ridiculous price tag, who wouldn't leap at the once-in-a-lifetime chance at a 51-day lunar flight and up to 21 days at the International Space Station or a nine-day mission with three days of free flight in low-Earth orbit and the rest flying around the moon? And why aren't we doing it?
The time will come when space travel will be as routine as airline travel is today. But, not withstanding the President's announced moon/Mars vision of a year and a half ago, if present trends continue, one will have to speak Russian or Chinese to be in on the initial opening of the "final frontier."
UPDATE: Welcome to the Fleet, Captain Lowry!
Space Adventures, the company that has sent "space tourists" up to the International Space Station, is planning a new mission: rocketing rich people around the dark side of the moon.
The first mission, dubbed DSE-Alpha (for Deep Sea Explorations), could happen as early as 2008, company CEO Eric Anderson said at a Manhattan news conference.
The first traveler would be only the 28th person in history to orbit the moon – not counting the cosmonaut of the Russian spacecraft that will make the flight – and the first person to orbit the moon in more than 33 years, according to the Arlington, Va., company. The trip will offer the chance to see the Earth rise from lunar orbit and a view of the far side of the moon, never seen from Earth, from an altitude of 62 miles.
Don't get me wrong; I would love to be a passenger on this trip, and there's nothing bad about the privatization of space travel. But as a long-time space buff, scifi dork, and patriotic American, it's more than a little galling to see the Russians providing lunar travel packages to the satellite we abandoned while the best we can do is broken-down low-orbit shuttles that leave behind trails of parts wherever they go and geostationary satellites that pump pop music to our car radios.
Rest assured, this "taxi" isn't cheap, although the aphorism is apt from a size perspective:
The price tag is every bit as steep: $100 million for each of the two planned passengers, which includes costs such as planning the mission, modifying a modern Soyuz TMA spacecraft for the trip, and completing manned and unmanned test flights before the space tourists make their trip.
The Soyuz has 10 cubic meters of crew space, about the size of a large SUV.
A hundred mil is a tad more than the income tax refunds most families sock away in their vacation funds every year. Though being crammed cheek-to-jowl inside a vehicle for a week does sound awfully familiar.
Still, seriously, leaving aside the ridiculous price tag, who wouldn't leap at the once-in-a-lifetime chance at a 51-day lunar flight and up to 21 days at the International Space Station or a nine-day mission with three days of free flight in low-Earth orbit and the rest flying around the moon? And why aren't we doing it?
The time will come when space travel will be as routine as airline travel is today. But, not withstanding the President's announced moon/Mars vision of a year and a half ago, if present trends continue, one will have to speak Russian or Chinese to be in on the initial opening of the "final frontier."
UPDATE: Welcome to the Fleet, Captain Lowry!
posted by JASmius at 11:10 PM
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