Lunar Tourism

Lunar tourism may be possible in the future if trips to the Moon are made available to a private audience. Some space tourism startup companies are planning to offer tourism on or around the Moon, and estimate this to be possible sometime between 2023 and 2043.

Types

Tourist flights would be of three types: flyby in a circumlunar trajectory, lunar orbit, and lunar landing.

Cost

Some of the space tourism start-up companies have declared their cost for each tourist for a tour to the Moon.

• • • Circumlunar flyby: Space Adventures is charging $150 million per seat, a price that includes months of ground-based training, although this is only a fly-by mission, and will not land on the Moon. Excalibur Almaz had the same price tag but never managed to send their capsule to space.

    • Lunar orbit:

    • Lunar landing: The Golden Spike Company was planning to charge $750 million per seat for future lunar landing tourism.

Possible attractions

Two natural attractions would be available by circumlunar flight or lunar orbit, without landing:

• View of the far side of the Moon

• View of the Earth rising and setting against the lunar horizon

Proposed missions

Space tourism companies which have announced they are pursuing lunar tourism include Space Adventures, Excalibur Almaz, Virgin Galactic and SpaceX.

• The company Space Adventures has announced a planned mission, titled DSE-Alpha, to take two tourists within 100 kilometers (54 nautical miles) of the lunar surface, using a Soyuz spacecraft piloted by a professional cosmonaut. The trip would last around a week.

• In February 2017, Elon Musk announced that substantial deposits from two individuals had been received by SpaceX for a Moon loop flight using a free return trajectory and that this could happen as soon as late 2018. Musk said that the cost of the mission would be "comparable" to that of sending an astronaut to the International Space Station, about US$70 million in 2017. In February 2018, Elon Musk announced the Falcon Heavy rocket would not be used for crewed missions. The proposal changed in 2018 to use the BFR system instead. In September 2018, Elon Musk revealed the passenger for the trip, Yusaku Maezawa during a livestream. Yusaku Maezawa described the plan for his trip in further detail, dubbed the #dearMoon project, intending to take 6–8 artists with him on the journey to inspire the artists to create new art.

Cancelled proposals

• Excalibur Almaz proposed to take three tourists in a flyby around the Moon, using modified Almaz space station modules, in a low-energy trajectory flyby around the Moon. The trip would last around 6 months. However, their equipment was never launched and is to be converted into an educational exhibit.

• The Golden Spike Company was an American space transport startup active from 2010–2013. The company held the objective to offer private commercial space transportation services to the surface of the Moon. The company's website was quietly taken offline in September 2015.