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Future plans to make the Moon available for tourism From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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]
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]
Note that these attractions are still conceptual projects that have yet to have been realized, as of November 2023.
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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]
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.
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]
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