Golden Spike Working On Private Moon Flights 121
medcalf writes "NBC reports that Alan Stern's Golden Spike Company is planning commercial trips to the Moon. From the article: 'A group of space veterans and big-name backers today took the wraps off the Golden Spike Company, a commercial space venture that aims to send paying passengers to the moon and back at an estimated price of $1.4 billion or more for two.
The venture would rely on private funding, and it's not clear when the first lunar flight would be launched — but the idea reportedly has clearance from NASA, which abandoned its own back-to-the-moon plan three and a half years ago.
Golden Spike's announcement came on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 17, the last manned moonshot. Backers of the plan, including former NASA executive Alan Stern and former Apollo flight director Gerry Griffin, were to discuss the company's strategy at a National Press Club briefing at 2 p.m. ET, but some of the details were laid out in a news release issued before the briefing.
"A key element that makes our business achievable and compelling is Golden Spike's team of nationally and internationally known experts in human and robotic spaceflight, planetary and lunar science, exploration, venture capital formation, and public outreach," Stern said in the news release.'"
Best of luck to them (Score:4, Informative)
at an estimated price of $1.4 billion or more for two
According to Forbes [forbes.com] there are only around 1000 people on Earth with that kind of money.
Re:Commercial exploitation of the Moon (Score:3, Informative)
We allow commercial exploitation of the Earth and we live here...
Re:Commercial exploitation of the Moon (Score:3, Informative)
I've lived in Florida all my life, the retirees who actually live here are incredibly cheap, I simply can't imagine them paying even $100/kg for their food, water and air. (now, the people who buy expensive beachfront real-estate and never use it are another thing... they are our tax base.)
If, by infrastructure, you mean "farm domes," then think about how much area under dome is required to support each person and compare that to the size of your average McMansion.... I'm guessing you'd need dozens of McMansions worth of enclosed habitat to support each person, and before you get into "a glass roof is cheaper to maintain per sq.ft. than a home" think about replacement of lost gasses, meteor strike repairs, dust cleaning, etc.
At 1.4B/2 riders, I might hope that they'll do a couple of trips a year, but there just aren't presently enough billionaires on the planet to support more than that on a continuing basis.
Maybe getting the billionaires to spend their billions (on this, or anything, really) will stimulate the economy enough to empower more of us to be able to take the trip?