The Last Word - Fly You to The Moon

ERIC ANDERSON IS CEO OF THE ULTIMATE HIGH-end travel agency. In 2001, Space Adventures was the first company to successfully send a tourist to the International Space Station. After a repeat performance in 2002, Anderson set his sights a little higher.

Last Wednesday he announced $100 million package tours to the dark side of the moon. After six to eight weeks of training, explorers with the means will get up to 21 days aboard Russian Soyuz capsules, performing engineering experi-ments, taking detailed photographs and, advanced technologies that can take us to

an escape system such that the crew can get eventually, according to Anderson, putting

Is this the realm of private companies? Where ble. And the Soyuz is a ver safe rocket. It's very mature--we haven't had an accident in is government's place in this?

Looking for life in the universe, studying over 30 years. As a system, it's simple: it has Mars. It doesn't conflict with what private out if there's a problem and come back to space exploration within the reach of every companies do. Throughout history, private Earth at every phase of the flight. So as far human being. He spoke to NEWSWEEK's companies have opened frontiers right as spacecraft go, it is the best. The shuttle is Yepoka Yeebo. Excerpts: alongside governments. NASA has very not a feasible commercial vehicle. It's too ambitious plans, and they need to develop expensive and too dangerous. YEEBO: When will trips to the moon be with - a new type of rocket to be able to imple- in reach? ment them. One of the benefits NASA ANDERSON: It certainly will be accessible to would enjoy is by having a private compa-those other than the superrich, but not unless the superrich pay for the beginning of it, just like the superrich paid for the first Space travel is a form of supercomputers. When will moon trips be exploration. There are $100,000? I don't know, but they'll never he$100,000 if they don't start at $100 mil risks associated with it, lion. It's the early adopters who pay for the technology, for the engineering, for the just like there are with paradigm shift that enables the rest of us to experience it later. Our goal is to provide any type of exploration. as many different space experiences to as many different people as possible. And the risks are worth it. Is this just an extreme holiday? ny demonstrate the Soyuz. NASA could "Holiday" is not really the right word; it's then buy [our] services if it needed them, really an expedition. This is something or otherwise utilize [our] translunar trans-philanthropic; it is going to inspire the rest portation systems to achieve its own goals. of us to continue exploring, it's going to inspire students to study science and math, it's going to inspire companies to make new types of technology. This mission is about much more than just a joyride. Would you say Space Adventures has a mission? Why are you doing this? Space tourism is a catalyst. It's a near-term market; we can service it now, from$100,000 suborbital flights to $100 million circumlunar flights, and we can reinvest our profits into building better and better transportation systems, and those same transportation systems 50 to 100 years from now will enable us to open up, to develop space. The space frontier is critical for hu-manity. There are too many benefits to be counted -energy, for example. There's enough renewable, clean energy from the sun to satisfy our energy needs, but it's too expensive to put solar-power satellites into orbit. The only wav is if we build cheaper and safer rockets, and the only reason to build them is because people on this planet want to fly themselves. Are early adopters paying? What's the investment climate like for space travel? Right now it's primarily billionaires who invest money into space travel; we don't have any space-travel venture-capital firms or any space-travel investment banks, and we probably won't until there's a really big, successful company that goes out and makes a new kind of [cheaper, safer] rocket. 70 You announced the moon mission the day after Discovery got back; will the grounding of NASA's shuttle fleet affect the way you work? How is this critical for humanity? Space travel is a form of exploration. Were Everything that we have of value on Earth, still in the early days of spaceflight; there've that we fight wars over, is available in only been 440 people who've ever been infinite quantities there. There's enough in space. There are risks associated with precious metals in one half-mile asteroid spaceflight, just like there are with any type to be worth a trillion dollars in the world of exploration. And the risks are worth it. market. And we wouldn't have to go dig up People who chose to participate in these our mountains and our national parks to programs are explorers, so they accept the try to strip-mine away what we have here. risks. Having said that, it is our responsibil- Maybe it's hundreds of years from now; but ity and the responsibility of those who build if we don't start with things like this, it'll the rockets to make them as safe as possi- never happen. NEWSWEEK AUGUST 22, 2005