MANX-registered space expedition firm Excalibur Almaz says is ready to sell tickets to the Moon – yours for a stellar price of just £100 million.
The first 800,000km round trip to orbit the Moon in a converted Soviet-era space capsule could launch in 2015.
Details were announced at space tourism conference held at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London where Excalibur Almaz (EA) founder and chief executive Art Dula revealed: ‘We’re ready to sell the tickets.’
One of the re-entry capsules drew big crowds when it was put on display in Westminster this week - providing some out of this world publicity for the Isle of Man.
The company has bought four re-entry capsules and two space stations from Russian firm NPO Mashinostroyenia. Two of the Almaz space stations, which were designed as observation platforms by the Soviet Union during the Cold War era, are stored in a hangar at Jurby Industrial Estate along with a space capsule.
Budding astronauts will be launched by rocket to a space station in low-Earth orbit. From there they will be continue into the Moon’s orbit, taking them 234,000 miles from home.
The trip which could last up to six months and would be a very different prospect to those offered by Virgin Galactic, whose craft will provide only a few minutes of weightlessness at just 60 miles up.
Addressing the conference about the markets and opportunities for private space expeditions, Excalibur’s chairman said: ‘The EA fleet has flown to space several times and will undertake many more missions. It contains vessels of a design that have spent thousands of hours in space.
‘This is scientific fact, not fiction. This is a private expedition, it’s not tourism. It’s like the expeditions to the South Seas years ago that made Britain so rich.’
Tickets for the historic first flight will cost about £100m, with the price falling to about £50m after 10 years. Adventurers will have to submit to six months of full-time training.
Excalibur Almaz this week signed a memorandum of understanding with California-based XCOR Aerospace for suborbital flight familiarisation using its Lynx vehicle for pre-mission training for Excalibur Almaz expeditions,
The Isle of Man has been named as the nation fifth most likely to man the first mission back to the Moon.