Nasa - $1.5 Billion Ticket To The Moon? We’ll Start Saving Now!

$1.5 Billion Ticket To The Moon? We’ll Start Saving Now!

If a new entrepreneurial start-up company from Washington DC gets their way, pretty soon, you and a partner could bag yourself a ticket to the moon for just $1.5 billion! That’s right folks. Now is the time to start saving all your extra cash check behind the back of the sofa, stow away your Christmas cash from Grandma. And you could be going to the moon, courtesy of Golden Spike.

The company is led by former NASA officials, who have announced their intention to launch manned commercial expeditions to the moon, by 2020. That’s just seven and a bit years to save up $1.5 billion. Golden Spike was founded by the former NASA science chief Alan Stern, who has estimated that they would need to spend around $7 – 8 billion to reach the moon, taking into account the cost of designing its own lander and space suits. However, their grand plans have been met with cynicism back at NASA, technologyreview.com reports. The director of Advanced Exploration Systems, Jason Crusan, commented “Today, it’s not a problem of technology. It’s a problem of financial resources and the will to go after it… I will be interested to know if they have a business model beyond doing a stunt.”

Of course, Golden Spike aren’t the first company to be offering space adventures for mere mortals. Space Adventures are already marketing trips into the unknown for wealthy people, aboard Russian rockets. “The breakthrough thing here is we can fly manned lunar missions for the price of a robotic mission,” said Stern… the man who left NASA with a reputation for cost-cutting, after a dispute over budgets.