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Tourism on the Moon

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The Moon

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[1] and 2043.[2][3]

Possible attractions

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Earthrise, a 1968 photograph of the lunar horizon by Bill Anders orbiting the Moon on Apollo 8
See also: List of artificial objects on the Moon

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

When and if landing is made possible, attractions such as these could also be part of the itinerary of a Moon tourist:[4]

  • Visit of helium-3 mines[5]
  • Visit of the South Pole habitat[6]
  • Visit of the Russian observatory[7]
  • Visit of the inflatable Moon base[8]

Note that these attractions are still conceptual projects that have yet to have been realized, as of November 2023.

Protection of lunar landmarks

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Buzz Aldrin's boot print on the lunar surface at Tranquility Base

The site of the first human landing on an extraterrestrial body, Tranquility Base, has been determined to have cultural and historic significance by the U.S. states of California and New Mexico, which have listed it on their heritage registers, since their laws require only that listed sites have some association with the state. Despite the location of Mission Control in Houston, Texas has not granted similar status to the site, as its historic preservation laws limit such designations to properties located within the state.[9] The U.S. National Park Service has declined to grant it National Historic Landmark status, because the Outer Space Treaty prohibits any nation from claiming sovereignty over any extraterrestrial body. It has not been proposed as a World Heritage Site since the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which oversees that program, limits nations to submitting sites within their own borders.[9] An organization called For All Moonkind, Inc. is working to develop enforceable international protocols that will manage the protection and preservation of these and other human heritage sites in outer space.[10] For All Moonkind, Inc. will be basing their new convention on treaties such as UNESCO's World Heritage and Underwater Cultural Heritage acts.[11] Until then, lunar tourism poses a veritable threat for heritage management, seeing as the most significant cultural sites, such as the Apollo 11 landing sites and the footprints of Aldrin and Armstrong, rely on the preservation of the surface of the Moon as is.[12] Ideally, technologies would be developed which would allow tourists to hover over these sites without compromising the integrity of the lunar surface.[12]

Interest in affording historical lunar landing sites some formal protection grew in the early 21st century with the announcement of the Google Lunar X Prize for private corporations to successfully build spacecraft and reach the Moon; a $1 million bonus was offered for any competitor that visited a historic site on the Moon.[13] One team, led by Astrobotic Technology, announced it would attempt to land a craft at Tranquility Base. Although it canceled those plans, the ensuing controversy led NASA to request that any other missions to the Moon, private or governmental, human or robotic, keep a distance of at least 75 meters (246 ft) from the site.[9] A company called PTScientists plans to return to the Taurus-Littrow Valley, the site of the Apollo 17 mission landing. PTScientists is a partner of For All Moonkind, Inc. and has pledged that its mission will honor heritage preservation and abide by all relevant guidelines.[14]

Types and cost

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Sketch of circumlunar free return trajectory

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

However, the only tourist flights to space that have been successfully executed so far have been suborbital and orbital flights.[15]

Suborbital flights are short and significantly less costly than orbital flights. Tourists on suborbital flights find themselves at an altitude of around 100 km, which is a little over the official beginning of space, where they get to experience zero gravity for approximately 5 minutes before beginning their descent back to Earth. Suborbital flights can last anywhere between 30 minutes and 3 hours and cost approximately $200,000 per passenger.[16]

Orbital flights, on the other hand, are longer, more expensive, and logistically harder to realize. They require flying hundreds of kilometres above the Earth's surface. Orbital flights typically last a day and cost around $10M per passenger.[17][16]

Both orbital and suborbital flights have only been executed in the context of space tourism, not moon tourism, but private companies have been making significant advancements in the realm of moon tourism. Notably, the entire development of SpaceShipOne, a sub-orbital spaceplane, including its test flight, cost $25 million, a figure notably less than NASA's daily expenses.[18]

Initiatives have been announced for the commencement of commercial sub-orbital spaceline services between 2007 and 2009. The initial passenger price estimate stood at approximately $200,000, with potential price reductions of over 90% if demand rises significantly. According to a 2004 OECD report,[19] NASA's projections suggest that sub-orbital tourism could generate annual revenues ranging from $700 million to as much as $4 billion, representing a substantial increase compared to the 2003 commercial satellite launch market, which ranged from 100% to 600% of those figures.[18]

Various studies have estimated the development costs of orbital passenger launch vehicles to be in the range of a few billion US dollars to around $15 billion.[20] [21][22]

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.[23] Excalibur Almaz had the same price tag but never managed to send their capsule to space.[24]
  • Lunar landing: The Golden Spike Company charged $750 million per seat for future lunar landing tourism. The idea was for a module to be fired off into lunar orbit where it would await a crewed vehicle, linking up to it and allowing passengers to explore the lunar surface.[25][26][27]

Proposed missions

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Space tourism companies which have announced they are pursuing lunar tourism include Space Adventures,[23] Excalibur Almaz,[23] Virgin Galactic,[2] SpaceX,[3] and Blue Origin, but nothing has been materialized yet.[28]

  • 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.[29] The trip would last around a week.[23]

Cancelled proposals

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  • 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.[30] 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.[31] In February 2018, Elon Musk announced the Falcon Heavy rocket would not be used for crewed missions.[32][33] The proposal changed in 2018 to use the BFR system instead.[32][33][34] 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.[35] In November 2023, the project announced that the mission has been postponed to an undecided date.[36] After the flight was postponed indefinitely following broader Starship program delays in 2023, the project was fully cancelled on 1 June 2024.[37]
  • Aerospace company Blue Origin has already successfully accomplished multiple suborbital launches[38] and plans on continuing to use their New Shephard rocket for tourism purposes.[39] As of November 2023, technical failures have prevented the rocket from continuing its services but the company assures the public that it will resume operations in 2024.[40]
  • 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.[23] However, their equipment was never launched and is to be converted into an educational exhibit.[41]
  • The Golden Spike Company was an American space transport startup active from 2010 to 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.[42]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Dear Moon. Accessed: 17 September 2018.
  2. ^ a b Gilbert, Dave (9 December 2013). "Could Virginity Galactic launch tourist trips to the Moon by 2043? – CNN.com". CNN. Archived from the original on 21 March 2023. Retrieved 21 August 2015.
  3. ^ a b "SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year" (Press release). SpaceX. 27 February 2017. Archived from the original on 1 March 2017.
  4. ^ Seedhouse, Erik (2014). Tourists in Space: A Practical Guide. Germany: Springer International Publishing. pp. 128–131. ISBN 9783319050386.
  5. ^ "Helium-3 mining on the lunar surface". ESA. Archived from the original on 3 December 2023. Retrieved 14 November 2023.
  6. ^ Warner, C. M. (28 October 2020). "Lunar Living: NASA's Artemis Base Camp Concept". blogs.nasa.gov. NASA. Archived from the original on 8 December 2023. Retrieved 14 November 2023.
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  8. ^ "Inflatable Moon base". ESA. 1 September 2022. Archived from the original on 14 November 2023. Retrieved 14 November 2023.
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  12. ^ a b Spennemann, Dirk H.R. (October 2007). "Extreme cultural tourism from Antarctica to the Moon". Annals of Tourism Research. 34 (4): 898–918. doi:10.1016/j.annals.2007.04.003 – via Elsevier Science Direct.
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  20. ^ Elliot, Chris (2003). "Book Review: Spaceflight Revolution. David Ashford". Space Policy. 19 (4): 303–304. Bibcode:2003SpPol..19..303E. doi:10.1016/j.spacepol.2003.08.007. Retrieved 8 November 2023.
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  28. ^ Gendron, Will (8 August 2023). "Virgin Galactic's first space tourism flight took off this week. Here are the players taking civilians to space". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 9 August 2023. Retrieved 11 November 2023.
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  33. ^ a b Pasztor, Andy. "Elon Musk Says SpaceX's New Falcon Heavy Rocket Unlikely to Carry Astronauts". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 25 September 2023. Retrieved 6 February 2018.
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  38. ^ Cao, Sissi (22 June 2023). "Every Person Launched Into Space by Blue Origin, So Far". Observer. Archived from the original on 26 September 2023. Retrieved 11 November 2023.
  39. ^ Roulette, Joey (15 March 2023). Maler, Sandra; Adler, Leslie (eds.). "Blue Origin expects New Shepard rocket's return to flight in late 2023". Reuters. Retrieved 11 November 2023.
  40. ^ Berger, Eric (3 November 2023). "How long will Jeff Bezos continue to subsidize his New Shepard rocket?". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on 20 December 2023. Retrieved 11 November 2023.
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