Space tourists have a rendez-vous with the moon early 2018

First of all, the craze for space tourism is not an illusion. Just look at the seats that the SXC, a Dutch company, has put on sale online of the Taobao website (a branch of the giant Chinese company Alibaba) that were sold out in a few minutes.

No less than 305 future space tourists bought themselves tickets for 70,000 euros a piece. According to the Chinese press, these customers are usually CEOs of companies in Shanghai longing for adventure and thrill.


Let’s remember that these space flights of SXC will be done in a small 2-seated shuttle, the astronaut pilot and a passenger. Two versions are designed: the “Lynx Mark I” that will rise to an altitude of 61km and the “Lynx Mark II” for an altitude of 103km.


At the start of next year, during the fourth semester, candidates will be able to stay 5 or 6 minutes in weightlessness. A second more ambitious program with the “Lynx Mark II” is scheduled for 2016.

Another trend is the development of Space Tourism through balloons.

After the company zero2infinity and its balloon “bloon”, of which tickets are already on sale for a cruise of 2 hours on the edge of the earth’s curve, it is now the company World View Enterprises’ turn to announce that it will soon launch its own flights.

Its goal: sending tourists up to 30 kilometers high, an altitude that allows them to see the edge of our planet and the infinity of space.

It is now possible to reserve a space ticket for $75,000 which includes a $5000 warranty!

A comeback of Airbus Espace’s Spaceplane?

We talk about it more and more, especially since the launch a few weeks ago of a model 1/4 the size of the Spaceplane in the waters of Singapore, since the project is now partly funded by Singapore’s economic development agency.

The initial planning scheduled the aircraft’s first flight in 2012, but with the explosion of the crisis, budgets had to be dramatically cut.

We’re waiting for 2022, the date of the first flight, granted the budgets are maintained.

Finally for those who weren’t sure, space tourism is getting ready for a trip to the moon.

Space Adventures and the Russian Space Agency, that offer a mission revolving around the moon, are starting-blocks.

They have just found the second passenger ready to spend 150 million dollars!

The crew is now complete with two tourists and one Russian cosmonaut to pilot. The flight around the moon is scheduled for late 2017/ early 2018.

I wish you all a great summer, thank you for your loyalty and we will meet again in September for new adventures, and quite exciting adventures through this new chronicle dedicated to Space Tourism.

Michel Messager is the associate director of Consul Tours, an advising firm focusing on a private and institutional clientele in the tourism sectors.

After being the General Secretary of French tourism and then the Commercial Director of Touropa and the Director of the tourism branch of the Verney Group, he joined the APST (Professional Association of Tourism Solidarity) in 1997, as a the General Secretary until the end of 2007, a time, during which, as a young retiree, he decided to revive his Advising firm founded in the early 1990s.

Nominated by the Tourism Minister in 2005, then in 2012, he seats at the National Tourism Council as the Delegated President of the economic tourism section, and created, with different tourism players, the AFST (The French Association of Tourism Seniors) of which he is the President.

He is the author of a book on Space Tourism published through “la documentation française” and of many articles on the topic.

He is now considered as an expert on the subject. He is often invited on radio and television shows to talk about the topic, as well as many conferences in many countries, especially in canada where he lives a few months out of the year.