For just $155, Excalibur Almaz will take you around the moon
FOR just $155, Excalibur Almaz will take you around the moon. They will also bring you back to Earth. No extras. It’s not Ryan Air. Although you do have to go to the toilet in your trousers. Excalibur Almaz might have the name of a Bond villain, but the firm based on the Isle of Man, are the good guys helping you live the dream of achieving space orbit without the need for a degree in science, slide rule haircut or a career in the armed forces.
The six-eight months trip you need $155 million. For that you get to use “six Soviet-era space vehicles: four re-useable re-entry vehicles and two Salyut-class 29-ton space stations, each with a capacity of 95 cubic meters.”
The FT describes the space vessel as the size of a “waste skip”. Yep. Fly me to the moon – in a old bin.
The reusable reentry capsules can carry three passengers to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The two Spacecraft are equivalent to the Russian Mir core or the International Space Station (ISS) Zarya module. EA has developed a plan to dock an RRV to a Salyut-Class Spacecraft in LEO and use the combined spacecraft as a transportation system to the moon, libration points, asteroids and deep space.
The firm as founded by Art Dula. Who he? Well, among his letters and businesses:
Pioneer of New Space prize by the Space Frontier Foundation and the 2012 International Space Development Conference award for Space Entrepreneurship
Says Dula:
“It is like how private British companies led expeditions to the South Pacific in the 17th century. We’ve just gone from seafaring to spacefaring.”
Watch out for the natives…
Posted: 23rd, June 2012 | In: Technology Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
