Post by Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe on Jul 28, 2005 0:42:27 GMT -6
Russia's great leap for tourism - a $100m trip to the moon
Russia's federal space agency took a giant leap in the field of cosmic tourism yesterday with the announcement it will offer a $100m (£57m) trip to the moon.
Roskosmos leaked details of the project as Nasa's space shuttle Discovery prepared for launch from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. A source at the Russian agency confirmed to the Guardian that the technology was in place for a flight to be launched within 18 months of a down payment.
"The tourist would go up in that capsule and spend the first week on the ISS," said the Roskosmos source. "Then a powerful booster like Proton would be launched from Earth with an accelerator block to dock with the craft at the space station."
The Soviet Union sent the first unmanned probe to land on the moon in 1959. It came close to launching a manned flight to the moon but dropped its programme when the Americans got there first a decade later.
Space tourists will not land on its surface but will circle its dark side and orbit close enough to examine its cratered lunar crust. They would live in two cramped modules about three metres across and eat biscuits and food in tubes.
Any candidate for the expedition would have to undergo several months of intensive training at Star City near Moscow.
More here: www.guardian.co.uk/space/article/0,14493,1536818,00.html
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