posted 01-23-2011 05:00 PM               

Please use this topic to discuss Space Adventures plan to send two clients a professional cosmonaut pilot on a privately-financed Soyuz mission around the moon.

posted 01-24-2011 02:38 PM               

Do you get another flight attempt? A partial refund?

posted 01-27-2011 10:33 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by onesmallstep:
And launch from French Guiana if they do?

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posted 03-30-2011 05:19 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Fezman92:
Wonder if any of the Apollo astronauts have bought a ticket.

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posted 02-02-2012 08:31 PM               

I may be wrong but from what I have read the Russians had some serious issues with their unmanned Zond programs on circumlunar flights. Mainly with reentry.

posted 02-08-2012 08:15 PM               

I think my point was that unlike ISS missions, which Soyuz has flown countless times, a manned circumlunar flight has never been done before by the Russians and would really be pushing the spacecraft beyond its known limits.

posted 06-16-2014 05:56 AM               

Speaking to the National Space Club Florida Committee on June 10, [Space Adventures president Tom] Shelley said Soyuz contractor Energia plans to modify the spacecraft for the moon mission by changing the ship's communications and navigation systems.

"We are going to have to change the heat shield because you're re-entering at a significantly higher speed" on a lunar mission, Shelley said, adding engineers are considering whether to guide the Soyuz landing capsule to a "skip re-entry" in which the spacecraft would dip into the atmosphere to dissipate speed before plunging to the surface to a parachute-assisted touchdown.

The Soyuz also needs a new habitation module to give the crew more living space during the week-long trip from Earth to the moon and back.

Shelley described the two depositors as "independent customers" who booked their flights separately. He did not disclose the identities of the clients.

posted 02-20-2018 08:24 AM               

Late last year we suddenly learned a lot more about what had been going on when Harald McPike filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia against Zero-Gravity Holdings, the renamed Space Adventures. McPike, it turns out, was the first customer for the circumlunar flight, the one who signed up in 2011 to pay $150 million for the trip. Those who follow spaceflight news closely, particularly any news about space tourism, will probably respond to seeing McPike's name by scratching their head in puzzlement. He is not somebody who was well known, or even known at all, in any of the space tourism discussions. He has not sponsored any space events or appeared as an investor. He is not famous. But, apparently, he is very, very rich.

McPike is, according to a district court document, "a private investor and adventurer who hails from Austria, but currently resides in the Bahamas. In the past, plaintiff has undertaken expeditions to the North and South Poles and has scaled many notable mountain peaks including Mt. Kilimanjaro. He now wishes to add space travel to his long list of adventures." McPike was not one of the eight people who booked tickets aboard a Soyuz spacecraft to the ISS. But he certainly had ambition, wanting to fly around the Moon, and he had the bank account necessary to buy a ticket...

posted 05-27-2019 01:09 PM               

What the two sides ultimately decided is unclear. The settlement finalized in April is sealed; each side agreed to pay its own legal costs but would not comment further on whether money changed hands.

Space Adventures is still pursuing its planned moon trip. On its website, the company promises that "if you chose to join this Circumlunar mission you will see the illuminated far side of the Moon, and then witness the amazing sight of the Earth rising above the surface of the Moon."