commercial moon flight to come

[Kragen Sitaker]

TransOrbital (http://www.transorbital.net) plans to go to the moon
next year, and hopes to fly regularly there after that.  Via Larry
Kellogg at lunar-update@lists.arc.nasa.gov, who got it from one John
Michael Williams.

http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/5372756p-6360899c.html

California firm signs deal for first commercial mission to moon

             By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, Associated Press Writer
             Published 4:40 p.m. PST Tuesday, November 26, 2002"

    MOSCOW(AP) - A California company on Tuesday signed a $20 million 
deal with a Moscow rocket firm to fly the first private mission to 
the moon next year. The unmanned vehicle would take pictures and 
deliver messages and cremated remains.

    TransOrbital Inc. of La Jolla signed the contract with Moscow's 
International Space Company Kosmotras, which was authorized by the 
Russian government to use the decommissioned Soviet-built ballistic 
missiles for commercial space launches.

    Kosmotras, a joint venture between Russia and Ukraine, plans to 
test launch a replica of TransOrbital's space vehicle into an orbit 
around the Earth next month, and then send the real spacecraft on a 
trip to the moon next October, TransOrbital President Dennis Laurie 
said at a news conference.

    The space vehicle, called the TrailBlazer, would orbit the moon 
for about three months, taking high-resolution pictures of its 
surface before crashing onto its surface. Private messages, cremated 
remains and other commercial cargo will be carried in a capsule 
designed to survive the crash, Laurie said.

    TransOrbital said the company hopes to fly regular missions to the moon.

    "We are very excited about ... going to the moon on a regular 
basis," Laurie said. He added that the company already has 
"thousands" of orders for the delivery of jewelry, business cards and 
cremated remains to the moon's surface.

    "Most of them who want us to take the cremated remains like the 
idea of seeing their relatives on a nightly basis," Laurie said. One 
customer asked the company to deliver a throne-like chair to the 
moon, but TransOrbital rejected it as too bulky.

    He hailed Kosmotras' expertise, and especially the fact that it 
employs people who once worked for the Soviet moon program which sent 
unmanned probes and landing vehicles to the moon's surface.

    Kosmotras has the only government license for converting the 
decommissioned RS-20 missiles into the Dnepr booster rockets. The 
missile - the most powerful in the inventory of Russian strategic 
forces - is known as the SS-18 Satan in the west and capable of 
carrying 10 nuclear warheads.

    Kosmotras head Vladimir Andreyev said that the company currently 
has five Dnepr rockets, but may eventually convert up to 150 such 
boosters if the market is ready to absorb such a number.

    "Instead of being simply scrapped, these missiles can be used for 
commercial launches," Andreyev said. "It's very advantageous for 
Russia."

    All Dnepr launches will be conducted from the Baikonur cosmodrome 
in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan. Kosmotras has already 
carried out two commercial launches of Dnepr.

    A Fairfax, Va.-based company, LunaCorp, has also spoken about 
placing a satellite in lunar orbit to send back live images of its 
surface.  The European Space Agency and Japan also have plans to send 
spacecraft to the moon the same year.

    ---

-- 
<kragen@pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
Edsger Wybe Dijkstra died in August of 2002.  The world has lost a great
man.  See http://advogato.org/person/raph/diary.html?start=252 and
http://www.kode-fu.com/geek/2002_08_04_archive.shtml for details.