Dream of taking a trip to the moon? A privately funded space flight company known as Moon Express plans to take you on vacation on Earth's natural satellite. However, one trip can cost US $10,000 per seat.
For the first time, the United States government will allow a private company to engage in spaceflight and travel to the moon and conduct a lunar landing. However Moon Express requires $10,000 per space tourist for traveling expenses.
According to the founder of Moon Express, Naveen Jain, a lunar mission trip could initially cost the company around $25 billion. Next year, we aim a mission to the moon at $7 billion, and the following years, moon spaceflight will be cut down by millions, Jain explained. This means that over the next 10 years, booking a flight to the moon is going to cost just $10,000.
Jain believes that a journey to the moon would only last four hours, which is faster than traveling from New York to London.
Apart from lunar tourism and commercial space flight, the private space company plans to compete for the Google Lunar Xprize 2017 mission to the moon. The tech giant plans to place a robotic lander on the moon during a live broadcast. The winning team that designed this lunar lander will receive a prize money of US $20 million.
Moon Express' lunar lander will carry out surveys on the surface of the moon and search for the best mining sites for carbon, metals, rare minerals, and to also detect nitrogen and hydrogen.