When Jules Verne wrote From the Earth to the Moon in 1865, space travel was completely uncharted territory. Mankind had not even invented automobiles yet.
One century later the United States ran their Apollo program, which brought a total of 12 astronauts to the surface of the Moon and safely back to Earth between 1969 and 1972.
That's been more than 40 years ago! And one might ask, why the heck has no one else been there since? Well, it's rhetorical, because, you could just as well as, why should anyone have gone there again?
Guess what. The tide has changed! With China, a young technology nation has a plan to bring a thaiconaut to the Moon. The Google X Prize competition offers prize money to the adventurers that bring the first privately developed rover to the Moon. And SpaceX seems to have found the key to the holy grail of space travel: low costs per kilogram of payload in orbit.
It's probably still far fetched to assume that anyone will start deuterium mining on the Moon anytime soon. After all, there is little use for it on Earth at the moment. But before the end of the decade flying around the Moon will be as cheap as a trip to ISS today. And tickets will not be limited by intergovernmental agreements, but will be sold by private ventures operating their own infrastructure.
If you do not get run over by a car tomorrow -and I hope you won't- then you will see an individual within the next decade, who will buy his ticket for a trip around the Moon. And from there it's just one more step till infrastructure on the Moon is being set up for regular surface visits.
In this blog you will find a lot of useful information concerning business concepts, mission profiles, trajectories, required technologies and motivational material for lunar trips with human passengers. Have fun!
One century later the United States ran their Apollo program, which brought a total of 12 astronauts to the surface of the Moon and safely back to Earth between 1969 and 1972.
That's been more than 40 years ago! And one might ask, why the heck has no one else been there since? Well, it's rhetorical, because, you could just as well as, why should anyone have gone there again?
- The United States hold the record for having been there first. It's common knowledge that in a competition the second best is the first looser. So this can't be any motivation.
- Given the low maturity of space technology in the past decades, any mission to the Moon would have had a high risk profile at excessive costs and been very unattractive for fundamental research missions. As an intermediate step it was much more attractive to develop the International Space Station ISS.
- There has not been a viable business plan that could cover the technology costs at an acceptable risk level.
Guess what. The tide has changed! With China, a young technology nation has a plan to bring a thaiconaut to the Moon. The Google X Prize competition offers prize money to the adventurers that bring the first privately developed rover to the Moon. And SpaceX seems to have found the key to the holy grail of space travel: low costs per kilogram of payload in orbit.
It's probably still far fetched to assume that anyone will start deuterium mining on the Moon anytime soon. After all, there is little use for it on Earth at the moment. But before the end of the decade flying around the Moon will be as cheap as a trip to ISS today. And tickets will not be limited by intergovernmental agreements, but will be sold by private ventures operating their own infrastructure.
If you do not get run over by a car tomorrow -and I hope you won't- then you will see an individual within the next decade, who will buy his ticket for a trip around the Moon. And from there it's just one more step till infrastructure on the Moon is being set up for regular surface visits.
In this blog you will find a lot of useful information concerning business concepts, mission profiles, trajectories, required technologies and motivational material for lunar trips with human passengers. Have fun!
