Now British tourists can enjoy a holiday orbiting the moon, claims UK-based space aviation company, Excalibur Almaz.
At a space tourism meeting in London for the Royal Aeronautical Society, the company unveiled its ambitious plan to send tourists to the moon, but at a considerable price. The company proposes to send its first tourists to the moon by as early as 2015, travelling 500,000-miles through space on the round trip.
The company founder and chief executive officer, Art Dula, said, ‘Excalibur Almaz is willing and able to send crewed missions deeper into space than would be possible aboard any other spacecraft in existence today. Our fleet of space stations and re-entry capsules enables us to safely fly members of the public to moon orbit as early as 2015.
There is not a single other vessel, owned by a government or the private sector, that is suitable for a manned flight to lunar orbit, utilizing proven technologies. The EA fleet has previously flown to space several times and will undertake many more missions. It contains vessels of a design that has spent thousands of hours in space successfully. This is scientific fact, not fiction.’
The company has acquired two Soviet space stations, and for its first flight it will be sending three people to the moon, where they will orbit the lunar surface and return to earth, on a private expedition, that is likely to cost around £100 million per person.
Previously, Virgin Galactic, a US-based company, has offered space flights for tourists, for the price of £128,000 per person for two to three days in space aboard a space shuttle.
