ASPEN, Colo. — The space tourism company Space Adventures is planning to use Russian hardware to send tourists on a trip to circumnavigate the Moon. The Vienna, Va.-based company says the first voyage already is booked and that it currently is in negotiations with those customers.
“I hope to have those contracts signed by the end of the year,” Eric Anderson, Space Adventures’ president and chief executive officer, said.
Anderson outlined the future for his space travel firm during Flight School, a workshop for commercial space and private aviation ventures, held here June 20-22 at the Aspen Institute.
A Space Adventures team has blueprinted a circumlunar mission using a
blend of existing and flight-tested Russian technology. At the heart of the company’s plans
is Russia’s venerable Soyuz spacecraft. A pilot and two passengers would depart Earth in a
Soyuz, linking up in orbit with an unpiloted kick stage for a boost
to the Moon.
“The Soyuz was originally designed as a circumlunar spacecraft. It hasn’t flown with people around the Moon, of course. But the Soyuz would fly a free-return trajectory – a boomerang course – around the Moon. So there’s not a lot that needs to be done to the Soyuz to accommodate for that … it could probably fly around the Moon right now,” Anderson said.
“There will be some upgrades to the communications systems … and we would make the window bigger too.
“
Anderson said that the Soyuz pilot and two passengers would not go into lunar orbit. “That comes later,” he added.
A practice run of mission hardware in unpiloted mode is likely, Anderson continued, “so we would test it all out, even though we think we could do it [the expedition] without a test flight.”
The two-passenger, $100 million per couch flight adds up to a $200 million mission.
“I personally think that it’s the biggest thing in private spaceflight. It would change the way the whole world thinks about private spaceflight. It is definitely doable for under the $200 million price tag,” Anderson said.
Space Adventures is no stranger to liftoffs of public space traffic. It bills itself as “the world’s leading space experiences company,” with a flight record to prove it.
Among its offerings, the group has handled five private space trips to the International Space Station (ISS). For example, in April of this year, Charles Simonyi took advantage of their services, as did AnoushehAnsari last September. They joined the ranks of fellow private space trekkers, Greg Olsen, Mark Shuttleworth
and Dennis Tito – each spending roughly $20 million to $25 million for the chance to spend some time in Earth orbit.
Sales are up for future public hops to the orbiting outpost. Customers are lined up for Soyuz seats to the ISS in 2008, in 2009, and potentially beyond, Anderson said.
“We’re trying to talk to the Russian Space Agency about how to increase the numbers of Soyuz flights to the space station. It is scheduled to go from two to four in late 2009 … but there may be ways to increase the number of Soyuz flights even beyond that in the future,” Anderson said
. “My confidence level is high,”
that those seats can be filled with customers, he said.
“I do believe that the Soyuz will be for many years, maybe not the only, but certainly the most reliable way to get to orbit,” Anderson pointed out. “So it’s important for us to continue to expand that business. I think that the market can bear five or 10 seats per year.”
Spacewalking on tap
Anderson
has been in the personal space travel business for nearly a decade. To date, Space Adventures has sold almost $200 million worth of spaceflights. They’ve booked flights into the future, even selling a couple more than the company has announced. Their clients have spent some 60 days cumulatively in Earth orbit, Anderson said.
And there remains another exploit for the public space traveler to master – a space
walk.
“I’m hoping that will happen in 2009,” Anderson said. “We have conditional approval from the Russian Space Agency to be able to pull this off.”
Given the right client matched with the right training requirements, “I think for a private citizen to go out and do a spacewalk would be huge,” Anderson said. “Of course it’ll have to be approved by NASA and by everyone else. This person will be very well trained … go outside the airlock and kind of hang around for an hour or two … then come back in.”
