[extropy-chat] Fly Me 'Round the Moon

[Neil H.]

On 8/11/05, Olga Bourlin <fauxever at sprynet.com> wrote:
> Don't forget to take your Dramamine:
> 
> http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/APWires/headlines/D8BTF8QO0.html
> 
> Company to sell trips around the moon

It's probably worth mentioning that the Russians ripped the mission
design off Constellation Services:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8700874/#050726a

<<
NBC News space analyst James Oberg wrote about the Lunar Express
concept eight months ago: As laid out by Constellation Services
International's Charles Miller, the passenger would first be brought
up to the international space station aboard a modified Russian Soyuz
craft. Then the Soyuz would make a rendezvous with a booster-equipped
logistics module that has been sent into orbit separately. The
beefed-up craft would make an elongated figure-8 course around the
moon – not landing there, but slingshotting around to return to Earth.

Oberg was amazingly prescient when he wrote, "The obvious question is
what would prevent the Russians, or some other international space
business, from simply stealing the idea and blowing off Miller and his
associates."

Unfortunately, Miller and CSI are not involved in the Russian
round-the-moon project, reported by Moscow-based Channel 1 (in
Russian) as well as the RIA Novosti news service.

Instead, the news reports say that Russia's Federal Space Agency and
Energia, the prime contractor for much of the country's space
hardware, are working on the project. Channel 1 says proceeds from the
two-week, $100 million tour package would go toward building Russia's
next-generation spaceship, the Kliper.
>>

Oberg's article from last year has more details and diagrams:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6558855/