Ticket to the moon for millions of dollars: Ilon Musk called the name of the first space tourist

The company Ilona Mask Space X announced flight of the first space tourist to the moon. Today his name was announced - this is the Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. He will be the first person to orbit the Earth's satellite since 1972. How much did he pay for the ticket, what awaits a tourist in space, and will Space X be able to do what government space agencies are hesitant to do?

Maezawa 42, he is an entrepreneur, tells Forbes. His current fortune is estimated at $ 2,9 billion, he is ranked 822-th in the world and 18-e in Japan by the size of the state. He began his business with sales of compact discs on which he recorded his favorite bands. Maezawa now owns Japan’s largest online clothing store, Zozotown. The future space tourist collects objects of art, and also plans to build a museum.

Back to the Future

Since 1959, automatic stations (robots) have repeatedly flown into the moon's orbit, and in September, turtles launched by the USSR with the help of a Proton rocket flew around Earth satellite 1968. People reached the moon's orbit only in December 1968, but because the flight did not land, Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders know much less than Neil Armstrong. Their ship was launched into orbit by a Saturn-5 launch vehicle with a payload of 140 tons.

Non-professional astronaut in orbit of the moon will be the first time. What will he fly on? The latest Saturn launched in 1973 year. "Proton" is not adapted for manned launches. Until this year, there were no missiles powerful enough for a manned flight into the orbit of the moon.

As reported by Space X, the tourist will go to the satellite of our planet on a new rocket company BFRwhich is still in development. Her first presentation made a lot of noise, as it is planned to be used both for missions to Mars and for flights from one point of the Earth to another.

Potentially, the circling of the moon could be made on Falcon Heavy, the first start of which occurred this year. Earlier, in 2017, SpaceX even announced that two future space tourists made a deposit for a trip to the Moon on this rocket in a manned version of the Dragon ship. Then flight was scheduled already on 2018 year. This is quite a logical scenario, but even it would not have been possible to execute: the first launch of a manned Dragon is planned only for April 2019 of the year. But Falcon Heavy has already flown, Dragon Crew is being tested, and the BFR carrier is only being designed.

Most likely, the company will need several years to build and test BFR.

Flight conditions

The new SpaceX carrier, according to the company, will surpass the Saturn-5 - the most powerful missile ever made by man - 118 meters against 111. At BFR, Ilon Musk has pinned his hopes, which Napoleon would have envied. The new rocket will consist of a reusable overclocking unit and a head section (length 55 m), having nasal wings and tail tails for landing in the atmosphere. The flight to Earth will take place in horizontal mode, but landing will be on the tail.

In the nose of the rocket there is a room with the volume 1000 м3 in which you can place up to 100 people or 100 tons of cargo.

The carrier is planned to be used for flight to other planets, and it can become an important link in the colonization of Mars. Earlier it was reported that BFR will also be able to fly from London to New York in half an hour.

Man flying around the moon, even without landing on a satellite, is an extremely complex and costly financially event. From the tourist, it will require special physical training due to a long stay in zero gravity in a confined space.

The journey to the satellite (about 380 000 km from Earth) and back will take about of the week. During this time, the tourist on board will be able to see the famous dark side of the moon and enjoy the spectacle of the earth’s disk entirely. At the same time, the span on the moon is planned only 200 km from the surface.

Financial motives

The first tourists were sent into orbit by Roscosmos: in the 2000s, seven non-professionals visited the International Space Station. The flight cost about $ 20 million. At the same time, Richard Branson became one of the most famous apologists for space tourism. He built a space plane that reaches the Cartman boundary (100 km, the conditional boundary of the atmosphere and space) and launches a ship with tourists into low orbit.

It was planned that for $ 200 000, tourists will be able to experience weightlessness several times during a flight and look at the Earth from a height of about 100 km.

Unfortunately, in the 2014 year, the SpaceShipTwo spacecraft crashed, and the next model is now being tested.

The banner of private astronautics was picked up by Ilon Musk, but at first his SpaceX was focused on delivering commercial cargo to Earth's orbit. At present, the spacecraft for delivering six tourists to orbit is also being developed by the company of the richest man on the planet Jeff Bezos Blue Origin. It will make a suborbital flight, "jumping" up and landing, without making a turn around the Earth. The cost of the ticket is also estimated at hundreds of thousands of dollars.

According to the calculations of Business Insider, Apollo lunar program cost US $ 120 billion in terms of the current exchange rate.

Technological progress and existing developments allowed Mask to estimate the current expenses for research and development in $ 1 billion. BFR creation and launches can significantly increase this amount, but not drastically, if only because landing on a satellite is not yet planned.

The cost of a ticket for a lunar tourist should be more expensive than a ticket to the ISS, but again, not an order of magnitude, so as not to scare away future customers.

Earlier, Ilon Musk himself supposedthat the cost of a ticket into Earth satellite orbit will be approximately equal to NASA's expenses for delivering astronauts to the ISS (the Americans paid Roskosmos about $ 70 million per person).

But BFR is a much more powerful rocket, so its launch should be more expensive than the Falcon Heavy. This may also affect the price tag for circumlunar travel. On the other hand, the profit at the first stage is not so important. The successful launch of Falcon Heavy brought the company new contracts and made Mask the hero of the month. It is easy to imagine how the market will react to the first manned flight to the moon on a rocket developed by a private company.

More difficult to assess the risks. In addition to money, Musk in case of failure risks his own reputation.

After the story of the rescue of children from a cave in Thailand, when the head of SpaceX scornfully spoke about the leader of the rescue expedition, the alleged use of marijuana on the radio and the problems of his other company, Tesla, Musk needs to restore its reputation.

It is alarming that Ilon Mask again shifts deadlines. On Falcon Heavy, this flight could take place earlier. Now we will find out if BFR was a ploy to postpone the fulfillment of the promise, or the beginning of a new era of space tourism.

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