Massachusetts Institute of Technology

If you've got $150 million to spare

and want to take a trip around the moon, don't wait for much longer—just one of the two seats that private space firm Space Adventures is selling for a proposed lunar flyby remains.

Byron Lichtenberg, a payload specialist aboard the space shuttle missions STS-9 and STS-45, noted this today at the MIT conference "Earth, Air, Ocean and Space: The Future of Exploration." The news that Space Adventures had sold one of the two nine-figure tickets came out quietly in January, when company CEO Eric Anderson mentioned it at a conference in Munich, Germany. Today, Lichtenberg, who had been in contact with the Space Adventures team, told a roomful of space pros, including astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Massimino, that the sale was definite, sending a murmur of excitement through the room. Lichtenberg confirmed the statement with PM Senior Editor Joe Pappalardo, who is reporting from the conference.

Space Adventures, a Virginia-based company, has been planning a lunar flyby since 2005. It offered the two seats aboard a Russian-made Soyuz spacecraft that will fly around the moon in a mission scheduled for 2015. Anderson won't say who purchased the first $150 million ticket, but hinted that you'll know the person's name when you hear it.

What could a potential space traveler expect if they purchased the last remaining seat on Space Adventures' moon flyby? The no-frills Soyuz TMA carries one pilot and two passengers. It launches on a three-stage rocket, and will require extra propulsion for a moon flyby. After the Soyuz is launched, a second launch will send a rocket booster into low Earth orbit to rendezvous with the Soyuz and provide the addition propellant. It's the extra fuel and equipment needed to travel a quarter of a million miles—as opposed to simply journeying to the International Space Station or into orbit—that causes the insanely high price of the lunar trip.

Don't have $150 million? PM's May cover story, "The Early Adopter's Guide to Space Travel," shows you all the ways you'll be able to visit space in the not-too-distant future, including a few that will go a little easier on your wallet. And, PM predicts, even the lunar flyby will become a bit more affordable in the years to come—technological breakthroughs will bring down the trip's cost into the low millions. Just wait a few years.

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