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Space Tourism: How Much Does it Cost & Who's Offering It?

Last Updated: December 17, 2022

Many of us dream of going to space and over 600 people have traveled to space as astronauts in government-funded agencies such as NASA, the European Space Agency, and Roscosmos. But how much does spaceflight cost in today and how is that expected to change in the coming years? 

With new advancements in spaceflight technology, the costs of space travel are decreasing, making the dream of spaceflight a little closer for us all.

Evolution of Spaceflight Costs and Technologies

During the space race, the cost of sending something into space averaged between $6,000 to over $25,000 per kg of weight not adjusted for inflation and NASA spent $28 billion to land astronauts on the moon, about $288 billion in today’s dollars.

In recent decades, it has averaged around $10,000 per kg though certain missions have been higher due to other factors including the destination, the size of the rocket, the amount of fuel needed, and the cost of fuel. 

After the retirement of the space shuttle program, NASA paid Russia to transport astronauts to the ISS at about $80 million per seat on the Soyuz rocket. NASA’s biggest and newest rocket, the SLS (Space Launch System) which is currently being utilized for the new moon missions including Artemis and Orion, currently costs about $2-4 billion per launch.

But recent years and the addition of private space companies have drastically changed the game. NASA allowed private space companies to develop equipment for missions, including a 2006 partnership with SpaceX under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program to provide resupply for crew and cargo demonstration contracts to the International Space Station (ISS). 

This partnership has continued to flourish over the years with SpaceX successfully launching two NASA astronauts in May 2020 on a Crew Dragon Spacecraft, making SpaceX the first private company to send astronauts to the ISS and the first crewed orbital launch from American soil in 9 years.

With the revolutionary technology of reusable boosters from SpaceX, the cost has plummeted, achieving less than $1,600 per kg with the Falcon Heavy (still totaling more than $100 million per launch) and even a projected cost of under a thousand for their next generation model Star Ship.

 These recent innovations are even making SLS the more expensive, less efficient option if SpaceX’s projections continue to progress as expected within margins of error. We shall see how NASA plans to adapt goals in light of this.

The Falcon Heavy is a cost-effective option for launching payloads into space.

The rise of private space companies

With private space companies, the opportunity for civilians to book a trip to space similar to booking a flight came closer to reality. Dennis Tito was the first private citizen to pay for a trip to space with a trip to the ISS from April 28th to May 6th, 2001 for $20 million dollars. Tito purchased his experience through Space Adventures Inc. which was founded in 1998 and offers a variety of different space experiences. They even acquired Zero Gravity Corporation, NASA’s provider of Reduced Gravity Training (not in space) for its astronauts, in 2008. They offer similar experiences for private individuals starting at about $8,200 as of this publishing (December 2022).

Space Adventures sent seven other space tourists to the ISS through 2009, but due to a number of factors, Space Adventures had to put their ISS offerings on hold until 2021 when they were able to purchase two Soyuz seats due to NASA moving their contract to SpaceX. Space Adventures sent two people to the ISS via the Roscosmos Soyuz rocket in December 2021 and is working on expanding its offerings.

In addition to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, there are a number of other private space companies getting into the commercial spaceflight/ space tourism market, most notably Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origins.

Flight Providers & Rates

What are the current rates for commercial spaceflight tickets? What commercial spaceflight trips have already happened? All prices are per person/ per seat.

SpaceX has had the most experience in sending humans to space thanks to its partnership with NASA and Musk has made it clear that he wants to make space travel an option for the public. To date, SpaceX has offered two commercial spaceflight options and has one big one planned for the future:

• SpaceX completed a Multi-Day Orbital Voyage, the first of their new plan to offer private astronaut experiences through their NASA partnership.  
• Estimated $55 million for a 3-day stay inside a modified SpaceX Dragon capsule orbiting the Earth at 357 miles (574 km) with three crewmates, sponsored by billionaire Jared Isaacman to raise money for St Jude’s Children’s Hospital
• Partnership between SpaceX and Houston-based Axiom Space Inc.
• $55 million for a 10-day trip to ISS at 408 km with a weeklong (8-day) stay in the orbital lab. 
• Expected to continue in 2023
• Axiom plans to build a stand-alone space station to replace the ISS with the first module expected to launch in 2024.
• Steve Aoki: American DJ and record producer
• Everyday Astronaut Tim Dodd: American science communicator, content creator, photographer, and musician
• Yemi A.D.: Czech choreographer, art director and performer
• Rhiannon Adam: Irish photographer
• Karim Iliya: British photographer and filmmaker
• Brendan Hall: American filmmaker and photographer
• Dev Joshi: Indian television actor
• Choi Seung-hyun (stage name: T.O.P.): South Korean rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor
• Cost is unknown, likely a minimum of $500 million

2. Blue Origin

Blue Origin: currently offers a 100km 12-minute ride to the Karman Line, the recognized boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space; pricing is still unclear and dependent on a variety of factors 

• On July 2021, Jeff and Mark Bezos went into space on the New Shepard rocket with Oliver Daemen (who won the trip through an auction bid of around 28 million) and honored guest Wally Funk (a member of Mercury 13, the private program in which women trained to be astronauts but ultimately never went to space)
• Blue Origin has completed 6 commercial space flights as of this publishing. Some “honorable guests” have been invited free of charge, such as Funk and actor William Shatner (Captain Kirk from the original Star Trek). Some have been sponsored or have received special deals due to their nonprofit status.
• $28 million winning auction bid for the first flight ( $19 million was donated)
• $1 million for a board member of a nonprofit
• About $1.25 for a Dude Perfect comedy group crew member, hosted by MoonDAO in August 2022

3. Virgin Galactic Subortbital Joy Ride

Virgin Galactic Subortbital Joy Ride: $450,000 for a 90-minute ride to suborbital space 50km above sea level 

• In July 2021, founder Richard Branson flew to the edge of Earth’s atmosphere with two pilots and three other Virgin Galactic employees as the first test of commercial spaceflight for the company
• Each VSS Unity SpaceShipTwo carries up to four passengers
• Expected flights are currently anticipated to begin in 2023 
• Includes training accommodations and amenities; launches from New Mexico

4. Roscosmos/ Space Adventures Customized ISS Trip

Roscosmos/ Space Adventures Customized ISS Trip: $50-60million for a 12-day trip to the ISS at 408 km

• In October 2021 an actress and director shot scenes for the first movie filmed in space
• December 2021 Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and Yozo Hirano for two days (same billionaire planning to go to the moon with SpaceX)
• With the current situation between Russia and Ukraine, this option is effectively nonexistent currently

5. Space Perspective

Space Perspective: a six-hour balloon ride to space/ the stratosphere on their “Spaceship Neptune” at $125,000

• Rides are currently scheduled to begin by the end of 2024. 
• A pressurized capsule will be slowly lifted by a football-field-sized hydrogen-filled balloon 19 miles (30 km) into the stratosphere, about 3 times the altitude of commercial planes. 
• The passenger cabin features a bar, bathroom, and windows for sightseeing and is expected to carry 8 passengers and 1 pilot per trip.

6. Aurora Space Station (no longer in development)

Aurora Space Station was supposed to be the world’s first luxury space hotel, offering a 12-day stay for $9.5 million allowing them to free float, observe space and earth, practice hydroponics and play in a hologram deck, but they shut down operations and refunded all deposits in March 2021. They received a lot of media attention and therefore are noted here due to that notoriety.

Conclusion: the current cost of flying to space

Currently, it is only available to those who can spend an average of $250,000 to $500,000 for suborbital trips (about a fifteen-minute ride to the edge of space and back) or flights to actual orbit at more than $50 million per seat (though typically a longer trip than 15 minutes).

It could be free/ discounted if you can find a sponsor, often for nonprofit/ charity purposes, or if you are someone of notoriety that can help spread the company’s mission. 

Waitlists are available for most offerings, with a deposit, with many stretching years into the future, which might end up helping you have a spot at a more reasonable price in the future if you can save up.

Many companies are looking to provide extended stay options on private space stations in the future, similar to how you might book a flight somewhere and stay in a hotel for a few days. Again, for the immediate future, this is estimated to cost tens of millions of dollars. The biggest portion of the cost would be launching them, though it is still estimated that a couple million dollars will be needed to cover the expenses of your stay while you are on the space station, whether that is included in the ticket price or added on top of that.

Many companies are hopeful they can eventually price a trip to space down to $100,000 but that will likely take some time, even with the cost-saving measures of reusable boosters. Many forms of recent technology have evolved exponentially in recent years and with dropping price rates as well. Just as plane travel was originally prohibitively expensive, but has now become fairly reasonable for the average consumer, the hope is that the same will eventually happen with space tourism, but we will have to see how long that takes. 

While the possibility of going to space is still out of reach for many of us, hopefully, the advancements in recent years and those yet to come will help to continually lower the costs of going to space, just as has occurred in many other fields. This author, for one, truly hopes that the interest of the elite who are currently able to participate in these offerings will spur research and development, not just of space tourism but space exploration in general, to help fuel a quicker journey to space access for all

Written by Sarah Hoffschwelle

Sarah Hoffschwelle is a freelance writer who covers a combination of topics including astronomy, general science and STEM, self-development, art, and societal commentary. In the past, Sarah worked in educational nonprofits providing free-choice learning experiences for audiences ages 2-99. As a lifelong space nerd, she loves sharing the universe with others through her words. She currently writes on Medium at  https://medium.com/@sarah-marie  and authors self-help and children’s books.

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How much are SpaceX tourists actually paying to fly around the Moon?

The short answer: a lot.

By Rachel Becker

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Two mystery space tourists put down a “ significant deposit ” with SpaceX to take a round-trip around the Moon, CEO Elon Musk announced yesterday . Musk didn’t say much about the two unidentified passengers, let alone how much money they’re shelling out for their Moon voyage. Turns out, it’s remarkably difficult to guess the costs of human spaceflight.

“There’s not just a line item that says, ‘Send this person to space.’”

That’s because, unsurprisingly, there’s a lot that goes into launching someone into space. There are the obvious costs: the spacecraft, the rocket, and the fuel. But then there are the less obvious, just as key, costs: the years and equipment needed to train the astronauts, building and maintaining the launchpad, paying the people on the ground in mission control, having rescue plans and personnel ready to get the astronauts or space tourists to safety if there’s an emergency. And that’s just the short list.

“It’s always a more complex answer,” Daniel Huot, a spokesperson for NASA, tells The Verge . “There’s not just a line item that says, ‘Send this person to space.’”

Here’s what we do know: while Musk wouldn’t specify an exact price, he did say that the around-the-Moon mission could cost roughly the same or a bit more than a crewed trip to the International Space Station. SpaceX declined an emailed request for clarification.

So what does that mean? Right now NASA pays the Russian space agency Roscosmos about $81 million and change for a round-trip ticket in a Soyuz capsule . The latest five seats NASA bought in bulk were a little cheaper, about $74.7 million per seat . Another spokesperson for NASA, Kathryn Hambleton, told The Verge in an email that the ticket price includes:

• Training to operate the spacecraft
• Use of the launchpad and launch support services
• Flight control, docking, and undocking services
• Air, consumables, and life support en route
• Standby emergency services for a rescue in orbit, or during landing
• Medical services after landing
• The variable weight of the crew and their cargo to and from the station

The reason why NASA relies on Roscosmos is that the US space agency hasn’t had a vehicle of its own to ferry astronauts to and from the ISS since 2011, when the Space Shuttle program was shuttered. NASA is hoping the $81 million price tag will drop in the future by partnering with private companies like SpaceX and Boeing through the Commercial Crew Program .

NASA estimates that a round-trip ticket to the ISS on the SpaceX Crew Dragon or the Boeing CST-100 Starliner would cost about $58 million . A spokesperson for Boeing could not confirm the ticket price, and SpaceX declined to comment.

How much would this longer trip cost?

A one-way trip to the ISS, however, covers a distance of roughly 220 miles . Musk said yesterday that the SpaceX lunar trip would brush past the surface of the Moon and venture deeper into space, before looping back to Earth — a distance of approximately 300,000 to 400,000 miles . (It’s not clear how they arrived at those numbers, considering that a one-way trip to the Moon when it’s closest to Earth is about 225,623 miles, according to NASA .)

How much would this much longer trip cost? Space Adventures , a travel agency that arranges space journeys with Roscosmos for private citizens, tells The Verge the price tag is more than double the cost of a trip to the ISS: about $175 million dollars per seat. The company, which has already sent seven individuals to the space station, plans to send tourists around the Moon by 2020 — and that’s how much they’re going to charge.

“We cannot be more specific as there are many variables, including destination, vehicle, duration and other options,” Stacey Tearne, a spokesperson for Space Adventures, wrote in an email to The Verge .

One of the variables, which could shoot up the price of any space mission , is of course, delays. And as we know, Musk has a bit of a problem with deadlines .

Update 1:10PM EST, 2/28: Updated to reflect the fact that a SpaceX spokesperson replied to emailed inquiries after the story was published, but declined to comment.

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Six ways to buy a ticket to space in 2021

Earlier this month, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule safely ferried NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken back to Earth following a multi-month trip to the International Space Station (ISS). No privately built spacecraft had ever carried humans into orbit before. But unlike SpaceShipOne, which was a single craft built specifically to win a prize, there are multiple models of the Crew Dragon, each designed to be reused.   

It’s finally looking like the exciting era of space tourism is about to erupt. A handful of so-called “new space” companies are now competing to sell space tourists trips on private spacecraft. Each one has a slightly different means of reaching space, and not all of them will get you all the way into orbit. But as long as you’re rich, you should have no problem purchasing your ticket to space.

Virgin Galactic

SpaceShipOne was retired after just three successful spaceflights, but the technology lives on in Virgin Galactic’s Spaceship Unity . Like its predecessor, Virgin Galactic’s rocketplane drops from a specially engineered aircraft before boosting itself to 50 miles (80 kilometers) in altitude. That’s high enough for Virgin Galactic’s pilots to earn their astronaut badges. However, others define space via the so-called Kármán line, the generally accepted boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space that sits 62 miles (100 kilometers) above our planet’s surface.

Virgin Galactic’s goal is to become “the world’s first commercial spaceline,” and eventually they’ll offer regular flights from Spaceport America in southern New Mexico. The company is planning to begin regular flights in early 2021, with CEO Richard Branson slated as the first non-professional pilot to travel on Spaceship Unity .

SpaceX is the only private rocket company to ever send a human into orbit. They’re also the only company now NASA-certified to send people to circle Earth. So, when will SpaceX start selling tickets to private citizens for trips to space? In the past, Elon Musk has said that the spacecraft could have a bright future carrying private passengers into orbit. And SpaceX recently announced that it has already sold seats on future Crew Dragon flights through other companies that are handling the logistics.

Ultimately though, Musk’s goal is to settle Mars. And to do that, he needs a bigger spacecraft. That’s why SpaceX’s engineers are working feverishly on its Starship, which is still under development. If the enormous spaceship works, it could literally rocket dozens of space tourists at a time between a number of destinations on Earth, or perhaps throughout the inner solar system. The company says that Starship would be able to travel between any two locations on Earth in less than one hour.

SpaceX is confident enough in their vessel that they already sold a Starship flight around the Moon to Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. No human has traveled to the Moon in nearly 50 years, and Maezawa, a fashion designer and online clothing retailer, has said he’ll take a group of artists with him.

Blue Origin

Jeff Bezos started his rocket company, Blue Origin, back in 2000. And he’s been selling Amazon stock to pump billions of dollars into the effort ever since. Like SpaceX, they’re prioritizing reusable rockets and spacecraft that can drastically reduce the cost associated with spaceflight.

Much of Blue Origin’s effort has gone into developing a pair of rockets: New Shepard and New Glenn.

New Shepard can carry six people inside a suborbital capsule some 60 miles (100 km) into space. Blue Origin has already flown a dozen test flights, and they’re still planning several additional tests before launching passengers. However, in March, Axios reported that Blue Origin could send passengers into space in 2020, though COVID-19 has caused delays across the space industry. If the company can still get its space capsule tested in 2020, it could be on course for paid flights in 2021.

Meanwhile, Blue Origin has announced that it will soon start selling tickets. The company’s website doesn’t list the price of a Blue Origin trip, but Bezos has previously said their space tourists can expect to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to fly in its New Shepard capsule.

The company is also working hard on their New Glenn rocket, a heavy-lift, reusable launch vehicle that Blue Origin has already invested more than $2.5 billion into developing. It’s larger than SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, but smaller than the rocket planned with Starship. That size could eventually enable regular passenger trips into orbit and even beyond. The company will need that capacity, too. Blue Origin’s goal is to one day have millions of people living and working in space.

Axiom Space’s goal is to create the world’s first commercial space station. In the meantime, they’ve inked a deal to send a crew of private citizens to the ISS aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule in October 2021.

Axiom’s initial crewed mission, dubbed Ax1, should send three paying astronauts to the ISS. Each ticket reportedly costs $55 million. And while it might seem like there’s a small pool of potential ticket buyers at that rate, in the U.S. alone, roughly 75,000 American households have that much money. Axiom also figures it’s just getting started selling tickets to space. In the near future, the company says it will send three crews a year to the ISS.

Back in 2014, NASA selected two companies — SpaceX and Boeing — to receive multibillion-dollar contracts to build spacecraft that could ferry astronauts to the ISS. SpaceX made good on the first crewed flight of its Commercial Crew Program contract earlier this year. Meanwhile, Boeing has yet to get its Starliner spacecraft safely to the ISS and back. Their first test flight reached orbit but failed to make the space station, and a NASA review outlined numerous necessary fixes.

Boeing will attempt another uncrewed test flight next year. And if all goes well, they could fly to the ISS by late 2021.

But once Boeing is flying to and from the ISS, the iconic aerospace company is also technically allowed to fly private passengers to the space station. They’ve been quiet on this option, but NASA has said they’d accommodate passengers at a rate of $35,000 per night.

Boeing has also hired a corporate test pilot astronaut, Christopher Ferguson. He’s been training alongside NASA’s astronauts and will be among the first to fly on Starliner. He might not count as a space tourist, but Ferguson will ultimately be part of an entirely new group of professional astronauts that work for private companies, not national space agencies.

Space Adventures

Space Adventures is an American company that offers private spaceflights to the ISS and, eventually, the moon. Since their founding in 1998, the company has sold a number of other spaceflight related experiences, like simulated zero-gravity airplane flights. And unlike their competitors, Space Adventures has sent space tourists into orbit, too. They’ve been responsible for over half a dozen paid trips to the ISS that made use of Russian spacecraft.

Most recently, they booked a launch to the space station on Russia’s veteran Soyuz spacecraft, which is set for December 2021. The mission, dubbed Soyuz MS-20, will fly with a lone cosmonaut and two Space Adventures tourists.

Space Adventures has arranged another path to get paying customers into space, too. They recently announced a deal with SpaceX that will put four space tourists in a SpaceX capsule and send them into orbit around Earth. How much will it cost? For now, both companies are keeping the cost of these tickets private. But those who do make the trip should get an excellent show. The mission will orbit at several times the height of the ISS.

Unfortunately, few of us have enough disposable income to fund a trip beyond Earth’s atmosphere. But with at least a half dozen ways for the wealthy to purchase a ticket into space next year, the hope is that the cost will continue to decline. And if that happens, you might be closer than you think to regularly having your rocket pass checked by the TSA.

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Fly me to the moon: How much does a ticket into space cost?

The age of space tourism has arrived. 

At least, that’s what several companies that have poured billions into the industry are counting on. There have been space tourists before – the first was millionaire American businessman Dennis Tito, founder of investment firm Wilshire Associates, who paid $20 million to travel to the International Space Station with a Russian crew in 2001. But now, we’re about to see a new wave of projects take off.

On July 11th, Richard Branson travelled 85km high in a rocket plane to reach the “edge of space” (where ‘space’ technically begins is defined differently by agencies, which become a point of contention among those who argue it must pass the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale definition of 100km to count as space). Branson travelled on VSS Unity, which launched from mothership VMS Eve, named after his own mother. 

The company 70-year-old Branson co-founded in 2004, Virgin Galactic , has an airport-style lounge ready and waiting in the New Mexico desert to take passengers onto spaceships for 90-minute trips, with a few minutes spent in low-orbit where passengers will experience weightlessness. The company hopes to begin doing so in 2022. 

Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos’ company Blue Origin is due to make its first manned trip into space on July 20th, with Bezos, his brother Mark and two other passengers on board. In future, Blue Origin’s rocket will take up to six passengers on suborbital flights to look out of six observation windows and – gulp – it will fly autonomously. 

Elon Musk’s SpaceX , which already works with NASA, plans to run trips into the earth’s orbit, to the International Space Station, and even to the moon. It has also promoted its plan for superfast point-to-point travel using spaceflight technology, with a journey like New York to Shanghai done in 40 minutes. 

Glavkosmos, a subsidiary of Russian space agency Roscosmos, has its own plans to sell tickets into space. Its CEO has said Russia has “no intention of ceding the space tourism market to the US.”

And it probably won’t shock you to learn that China has a growing private space industry – with 78 commercial space companies reportedly in operation in 2019 – that also wants to be a competitor.

Ticket to ride

Whilst we are normally in the business of finding the best deals for international money transfers , the MoneyTransfers.com team has turned our attention to what a spot on a commercial spaceship could cost you. 

Among the first batch of new space tourists will include people who’ve paid anywhere from $200,000 to $55 million, and a few who’ve paid nothing at all (see infographic below). 

But a lot is still unknown about how much tickets will eventually cost. Virgin Galactic tickets may be well above a quarter of a million dollars initially, though the company says it wants to bring that down to $40,000. That figure may prove unrealistic if demand is significantly higher than supply. 

Both Blue Origin and SpaceX have remained tight-lipped about how much they think they will charge ‘normal people’ (AKA non-billionaires) for a seat on one of their rockets. Glavkosmos’s pricing is by enquiry only. 

“Whilst sub-orbital space travel is beyond the reach of 99.9% of people, Richard Branson’s trip marked a new chapter,” said David Doughty, director of space travel agency (yes, you read that right) Rocket Breaks . 

Doughty’s company is preparing to serve a “new travel industry niche,” with agents from the luxury travel sector who usually cater for ultra high-net-worth individuals. 

Doughty told MoneyTransfers.com he expects sub-orbital trips to cost around £350,000, and orbital missions to cost up to £35 million.  

José Mariano López-Urdiales, founder and CEO of zero-emission space logistics company Zero 2 Infinity , had a similar prediction. 

“If the past is indeed prologue, the price will go up, not down, in the short term,” López-Urdiales told MoneyTransfers.com. 

“Dennis Tito’s flight to Space in 2001 is considered the start of space tourism. Booking such a flight, on the Soyuz, is now three times more expensive than the $20 million he paid. The increased buzz about the possibilities just increases the demand, but the supply of vehicles is very, very limited.”

“Until a large fleet of solutions is available, we’ll see the prices rise. Those vehicles will be of many different types, missile-type rockets, rocketplanes, and also Near Space balloons. Prices may come down, below $100k, in about eight years, which is a realistic time for a large enough fleet to be in place.” 

López-Urdiales clarified that this only applies to sub-orbital trips – “Orbital will still be many tens of millions of euros, for over 10 years,” he said. 

“The good news is that the view is just as good in Suborbital as it is in Orbital,” he added. “Once you are above 30 km the sky is black and the Earth blue and curved.”

Either way, if you want to channel your inner Neil Armstrong, you’d better get saving. 

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Here's How Much A Ticket On A SpaceX Flight To The Moon Will Cost 

SpaceX is sending two private citizens to the moon, and all things considered, it won’t cost all that much, if you happen to be a billionaire.

On Monday, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced that his company will fly two private individuals — not current astronauts, that is — on a trip around the moon and back on the Dragon 2 spacecraft.

The mission is tentatively scheduled for “late 2018,” but depends on a huge number of variables before it can go ahead. The SpaceX press release after the announcement notes that the private flight team has already paid a “significant deposit” to go to the moon and back, but Musk didn’t give an exact number as to what a ticket would cost. He did, however, drop a pretty big hint: during the press conference, Musk told reporters that a trip around the moon would cost about the same as a private trip to visit the International Space Station: about $35 million.

But that cost doesn’t quite line up with what’s on SpaceX’s website . The Dragon 2 spacecraft will go into space on top of a Falcon 9 Heavy rocket, which has a listed price of $90 million per launch on a late 2018 timeframe.

However, $35 million could be for a ticket , singular. The first private mission (and most Dragon 2 missions) will hold at least two astronauts, so it’s possible that Musk means the total cost will be more than $70 million, which would put it closer to a current estimate. NASA currently pays Roscosmos about $81.7 million per seat on the Soyuz capsule to get its astronauts to the ISS.

SpaceX will have no shortage of customers — if the cost to fly is around $35 million, there are thousands of individuals with a net worth high enough to justify that cost, assuming they’re willing to risk their life in the process. The company wants to conduct health and fitness tests and “begin initial training” for the private astronauts later this year, and said that “other flight teams have also expressed strong interest.” We’ll find out who the multi-millionaire guinea pigs are “contingent upon their approval and confirmation of the health and fitness test results,” and eventually, they’ll probably say how much they paid for a round-trip ticket to the moon.

• Space Science

How much does space travel cost?

Spaceflight has traditionally been a government-led activity — and it's never been cheap. But the stratospheric cost of putting people and payloads into space is finally starting to fall, thanks in part to the rise of SpaceX and other private spaceflight companies.

Here’s a look at what it costs to go to space, whether it’s another satellite that needs to be placed in orbit or an adventurous billionaire looking for a joyride around the moon .

Sending up a satellite

Using its 230-foot-tall Falcon 9, SpaceX charges $62 million to send into orbit commercial satellites weighing up to 50,000 pounds. The closest American competitor is the United Launch Alliance Atlas V, which starts at $73 million for a 41,000-pound payload .

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Those are just starting prices; government agencies typically pay more for a long list of extra services. The Air Force, for example, is paying SpaceX $96.5 million to launch a GPS satellite in 2019 .

Flying to the International Space Station

Since NASA mothballed its space shuttles in 2011, NASA has relied on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to get astronauts to the ISS. Russia has been steadily raising the price of Soyuz seats, reaching $82 million each in 2015. The agency last purchased Soyuz seats for $75 million apiece in 2017.

NASA hopes to end its reliance on Russia in 2019, when SpaceX's Crew Dragon and Boeing's Starliner capsules begin “taxi” flights to the ISS. Seats on those spacecraft are expected to cost about $58 million .

How much would I have to pay for a flight into space?

Depending on where you're going, a ticket could set you back anywhere from $250,000 to tens of millions of dollars.

If you're looking simply to cross the 62-mile-high Karman line that marks the boundary between the upper atmosphere and outer space, Virgin Galactic says it will take you there for $250,000. The company says about 650 people already have tickets for the suborbital flights, to be made aboard a winged vehicle called SpaceShipTwo. A date for customer flights has yet to be announced.

Jeff Bezos’ rocket company, Blue Origin, plans something similar — sending space tourists on brief suborbital flights using its New Shepard rocket system. The company has yet to set ticket prices or say when paid flights might begin.

Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin passengers will join the fewer than a dozen private citizens who have funded their own trips into space. From 2001 to 2009, the Vienna, Virginia-based firm Space Adventures worked with Russia’s space agency to send eight people to the ISS on flights lasting 10 or more days.

Space A colossal elevator to space could be going up sooner than you ever imagined

The world's first private astronaut, a wealthy American engineer named Dennis Tito, reportedly paid $20 million to spend eight days in space in 2001. More recently, Guy Laliberté, the co-founder of Cirque du Soleil, shelled out $35 million for an ISS trip in 2009 . Space Adventures still advertises Soyuz flights and plans to start booking trips to the ISS aboard Boeing’s Starliner.

In September 2018, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced that Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa would ride the company’s yet-to-be-built Big Falcon Rocket on a trip around the moon. Neither Musk nor Maezawa, who said he would take along seven artists, would discuss the mission’s cost.

What about other rockets?

Small satellites may qualify for a free ride to space through NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites program, which helps universities and research groups fly standardized satellites called CubeSats aboard rockets as secondary payloads.

If your satellite can’t hitch a free ride, you can book a NASA sounding rocket to the edge of space for as little as $1 million . For orbital flights of payloads weighing less than 500 pounds, Los Angeles-based Rocket Lab offers launches of its Electron rocket from New Zealand for about $5 million .

From there, the price goes up steeply. Northrop Grumman's Pegasus rocket, which is air-launched from the belly of a jumbo jet, can place 1,000 pounds in orbit for about $40 million . Stratolaunch, a new venture bankrolled by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, plans to launch Pegasus rockets from its own colossal airplane before offering an expanded line of rockets capable of carrying up to 13,000 pounds. The company has yet to disclose prices.

NASA is developing its Space Launch System, which will carry astronauts to the moon and Mars. The rocket’s per-launch cost has not been disclosed, but the agency now spends at least $2 billion per year on the project. The maiden flight isn’t expected until 2020.

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Space Tourism Is Here: Booking a Trip to the Final Frontier

The next era of space exploration and innovation is here — and we're all invited. Space tourism is officially taking flight, and it might just save the Earth.

In July 2021, we watched as Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos took to the skies in a giant leap for the space tourism industry, but their launches to the edge of space weren't timed particularly well. Against the backdrop of a global pandemic and climate emergency, two billionaires taking joy rides to space may not have been good optics, but don't underestimate what happened — and how important it could be for the future of humanity.

With the first crewed launches of Virgin Galactic's supersonic space plane and Blue Origin's reusable rocket, a world of commercial space travel is taking its first step. Both companies plan to begin regular, scheduled trips for paying space tourists in the near future, but their visions stretch back many years to the beginning of human spaceflight.

The Space Race: Then and Now

Bezos's Blue Origin chose an auspicious day to send its first crew to space. July 20, 2021 was exactly 52 years after Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon. But that wasn't the only major space travel anniversary celebrated in 2021.

April 12 was the 60th anniversary of Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becoming the first human to not only reach space, but also go into orbit around Earth. Meanwhile, May 5 saw the 60th anniversary of NASA's Freedom 7 mission, which launched Alan Shepard on a suborbital flight that lasted 15 minutes. He reached an altitude of 101 miles to become the first American in space before his capsule parachuted to splashdown in the ocean.

The name of Blue Origin's New Shepard launch system is no coincidence. Its mission profile is almost identical to America's inaugural 1961 spaceflight, save for billionaire-grade comfy seats and large windows. From Launch Site One near Van Horn in the West Texas desert, that rocket fires a capsule containing up to six people (but no pilot) into space, which then parachutes down 15 minutes later.

The Virgin Galactic experience is different. Its supersonic rocket-powered spaceplane SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity seats six passengers and two highly trained pilots. It takes off on a runway from Spaceport America near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, while strapped to a mothership. At 52,000 feet, it detaches and burns its rocket engine for one minute to reach Mach 3 speeds and touch the edge of space. After a few minutes of weightlessness (and a chance for passengers to see the curvature of Earth against the blackness of space), it glides back to land on a runway.

The Price for a Ticket to Space

These short trips cost between $250,000 and $500,000, but in April 2022, a truly out-of-this-world private trip to space launched with an even more astronomical price tag. It came from the other billionaire in the space tourism bubble: Elon Musk. Axiom Mission 1 saw his company, SpaceX, launch four private astronauts on behalf of Houston-based space tourism company Axiom Space. An American real estate investor, a Canadian investor, a former Israeli Air Force pilot, and a former NASA astronaut took an incredible orbital mission in its Crew Dragon spacecraft. 

At $55 million per ticket, the trip to the International Space Station represented ultra-aspirational space tourism of the highest order. "They [did] what real astronauts do, and I don't think it's an accident that Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin did their flights before Axiom's mission,” says Christina Korp, cofounder of  Space for a Better World . Axiom Space intends to launch a private space station — the first "space hotel" — as early as 2025 to give space tourists somewhere to visit.

The Future of Space Tourism — and of Our Planet

Musk talks of Mars colonies and humanity spreading out into the cosmos, but since 2012, SpaceX has made a lot of money from NASA contracts to launch supplies to the ISS. In the summer of 2020, it began ferrying NASA astronauts there, too. SpaceX's Starship — currently being tested — is slated to land two NASA astronauts, the first woman and the next man, on the moon as early as 2025.

You see, space tourism is just a sideshow to a bigger and more worthy goal of saving the planet. Sometime in the next few years, Blue Origin plans to test its reusable New Glenn rocket — named after John Glenn, who, in 1962, became the first American to orbit the Earth — which will be able to take cargo and astronauts into orbit. Bezos has said he thinks we need to go to space to save Earth, specifically by protecting the planet from pollution by moving heavy industry into space. That can only happen when space travel is safe, scheduled, and affordable. Space tourism will help create a competitive space economy, just as mass tourism has lowered the cost of flying.

Similarly, Branson's aim is to increase access to space. "We are at the vanguard of a new space age…Our mission is to make space more accessible to all," he said after his inaugural flight. A microgravity experiment was on board that first flight in July 2021, with similar plans for all subsequent trips.

The scientific spin-offs for all of us down on Earth are currently unknown, but the space community has an incredible track record when it comes to innovation. "Clean energy as solar power is from the space program," says Korp. "Solar panels were invented to power satellites and refined to power spacecraft." Cue GPS, weather forecasting, telecommunications, and even internet access. There are also fleets of satellites large and small that observe how our planet is behaving and changing. "It's the space industry that's monitoring climate change, tracking hurricanes, and learning how to survive in the extreme environment of space — including experiments to grow food with almost no water, for example," says Korp. Every single space mission, including suborbital and even zero-gravity flights, have environmental experiments on board as default.

"This is not about escaping Earth," said Bezos after the flight. "The whole point is, this is the only good planet in the solar system and we have to take care of it." Bezos wants to scale up into affordable space travel. That will enable long-term, commercial projects that ultimately may help prevent further climate change, or at least help us cope with its consequences.

However, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and SpaceX won't be the only way to reach space. Russian space agency Roscosmos is expected to take "citizen space explorers" to the ISS soon, but the most affordable way to get "black sky time" may be with Space Perspective , which will launch a pressurized capsule propelled by a high-performance space balloon.

The six-hour flight costs $125,000 per person and is slated to launch from Space Coast Spaceport in Florida in 2024 (the first flight is already fully booked, but you can put your name on a waiting list for any future expeditions). "Unlike short-lived, adrenaline-fueled moments of weightlessness, Space Perspective flights bring you space calm," says Jane Poynter, founder, co-CEO, and CXO of Space Perspective. The flights on Spaceship Neptune involve a gentle ascent at just 12 miles per hour for a six-hour tour of Earth's biosphere, culminating in a view of our beautiful planet from space.

Space tourism is here at last. Instagram had better get ready for "Earth selfies."

Program Credits

Editorial Lead: Elizabeth Rhodes Contributors: Jamie Carter and Stefanie Waldek Visuals Editor: Mariah Tyler Art Director: Jenna Brillhart Designer: Sarah Maiden

Related Articles

How Much Does a Trip to the Moon Cost?

Since the Apollo missions ended in the 1970s, the prospect of traveling to the moon has captured the public imagination. With recent technological advances and new ambitions in space exploration, the idea of commercial lunar travel is moving closer to reality. But how much would it actually cost to take a trip to the moon?

This article examines the complex factors that come into play when pricing a hypothetical moon voyage for space tourists. While an exact dollar value is elusive, we can analyze the expenses involved to estimate a lunar travel budget. Join us on a thought journey to the moon and back while exploring this astronomical question!

According to early projections, a trip to the Moon per passenger could range from $100 million to $150 million and more . Given the huge uncertainties and variables surrounding pioneering commercial space endeavors, estimating an exact dollar value for a moon trip is difficult. However, as technology progresses and spaceflight is proven safe and reliable over time, costs are expected to gradually decrease.

Major costs factored into early estimates include:

Vehicle Development:

• Designing and engineering new  large orbital spacecraft  capable of a lunar journey
• Constructing  moon landers  for surface touchdown (for landed missions)
• Test launches , safety improvements, and design iterations

Recurring Production Costs:

• Building each spacecraft  – Billions invested per launch vehicle
• Engine production  – Hundreds of millions per set of flight engines
• Operational labor  – Thousands of engineers required for launches

Mission-Specific Expenses:

• Astronaut training  for passengers – Approximately $1 million+ per person
• Life support systems  – Passenger cabin, spacesuits, consumables: ~$50 million
• Propellants and provisions  – Food, water, fuel costs for a weeklong trip

Program Expenses:

• Mission control  crews and facilities
• Flight surgeon  and medical personnel
• Insurance premiums  – Likely 10% or more of total price
• Profit margin  – Buffer to account for overages

As technology matures and programs scale, the high fixed costs of development and equipment can be distributed across more missions, potentially lowering per-person prices significantly.

The Motley Fool states that NASA’s cost to send astronauts to the moon is reported to be $4.1 billion per four-person flight , equating to $1,025,000,000 per astronaut .

GOBankingRates website notes that the cost to go to the moon is estimated at $140 billion for the first 9 trips, and the cost to go to space, come back, and go again is reported to be $1.56 billion per mission .

According to The Verge , Space Adventures quotes a price of about $175 million per seat for a trip around the moon.

Golden Spike Co. advertised tourism trips to the lunar surface with an estimated cost of between $500 million and $750 million , as Space.com notes.

The Evolution of Private Space Travel

For decades, space travel was exclusively undertaken by government-funded agencies sending highly trained astronauts to space for scientific missions. But the turn of the millennium saw the rise of private space companies aiming to expand access.

Companies like Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, and SpaceX envision a future where civilians can purchase tickets for suborbital flights, orbital missions, and even voyages to destinations like the moon and Mars. Their progress has been steadily turning the concept of space tourism into a plausible reality.

While suborbital hops just beyond the boundary of space offer easier goals, several companies already have their sights set on the moon. From wealthy thrill-seekers to middle-class space enthusiasts, this untapped lunar tourism market aims to open space to broader audiences.

Making commercial moon missions feasible will require massive technological advances and infrastructure investment. But each successful new rocket launch and milestone achieved brings us one step closer to realizing humanity’s lunar travel dreams.

Who Are the Main Players?

A variety of private space companies and space agencies worldwide are spearheading efforts to develop spacecraft, rockets, equipment, and operations needed to make lunar tourism possible:

Private Spaceflight Companies

• SpaceX – Elon Musk’s aerospace company is developing the next-generation Starship super heavy rocket for commercial circumlunar trips.
• Blue Origin – Jeff Bezos’ space firm is designing the Blue Moon crewed lunar landing system to deliver payloads and people to the moon’s surface.
• Virgin Galactic – Richard Branson’s spaceline aims to provide the spaceflight portion of a lunar journey, partnering with other firms.
• Axiom Space – This startup is coordinating plans for commercial moon missions including crew training, coordination, and more.

National Space Agencies

• NASA – Through programs like Artemis, NASA is supporting private moon missions with technology development, infrastructure, and expertise.
• Roscosmos – Russia’s space corporation is collaborating with companies on lunar programs and offering spots on circumlunar spaceflights.
• ESA – The European Space Agency is providing dedicated Moonlight initiative funds to support private lunar projects.
• ISRO – The Indian Space Research Organisation aspires to enable crewed moon missions through advancements like its Chandrayaan projects.

Tourism Agencies

• Space Adventures – This space tourism company has arranged eight private astronaut missions to the International Space Station already.
• Space Perspective – Using high-altitude balloons, this startup aims to offer access to space’s dark sky and star scenery.

Want to visit a place on Earth that looks like our of this world? Go to a place where you can see the Aurora Borealis .

What Might a Lunar Tourist Trip Entail?

While details will vary across providers, a hypothetical commercial moon trip for private citizens could potentially involve:

Pre-Flight Preparations

• Completing  medical exams  to prove flight physical and psychological fitness
• Astronaut training  for 6+ months at a private space academy to prepare for rigors of spaceflight
• Mission simulation exercises  in spacecraft mockups and virtual reality
• Space environment orientation  like zero-G plane flights and pressure chamber tests

The Spaceflight Itinerary

• Rocket launch  from a spaceport aboard a powerful new spacecraft
• Up to  3 days spent in transit  to the moon
• Lunar orbit insertion  upon arriving at the moon
• 3 days in lunar orbit  viewing surface, taking photographs, live broadcasts
• For landed expeditions:  Moon landing  at a designated lunar site
• Moon surface exploration  for ~1 day in a pressurized lunar rover
• Additional lunar orbiting  time for observations
• Trans-Earth injection  rocket burn to depart moon’s gravitational pull
• 3-day moon-to-Earth return flight
• Re-entry and splashdown  at mission conclusion

Mission Duration

• Total estimated mission duration : ~7 days from launch to splashdown
• Trip timeline : Flexible based on launch windows
• Training duration : 6-12 months pre-flight

How Does This Compare Historically?

The Hubble Space Telescope cost approximately  $1.5 billion  adjusted for inflation, while the Extremely Large Telescope was around  $1.3 billion .

So, while $100 million-$150 million represents an unfathomable amount for most, it is dwarfed by past government-funded space projects. As technology progresses, economies of scale kick in, and demand rises, prices are likely to continue becoming more attainable.

Major Hurdles to Overcome

Many monumental technical and financial obstacles stand in the way of commercial lunar travel becoming as routine and affordable as jet travel:

Technological Challenges

• Passenger safety  – Developing fail-safe systems for launch, spaceflight, and landing
• Life support systems  – Creating closed-loop life support that is reliable for durations needed
• Radiation  – Mitigating hazardous cosmic radiation exposure during transit
• Lunar environment engineering  – Making vehicles and equipment durable for the harsh lunar landscape
• Reusability  – Designing for full rocket and spacecraft reusability to reduce costs

Business Challenges

• Capital requirements  – Securing the enormous upfront financing required
• Time horizon  – Long development timelines before revenue is realized
• Profitability  – Dropping prices while still sustaining healthy profit margins
• Liability  – Insuring high-risk spaceflight as a commercial endeavor
• Regulations  – Navigating legal and government oversight

Demand Risks

• Market size  – Having broad enough demand at introductory high price points
• Competitors  – Holding market share as more space tourism players emerge
• Reputation  – Maintaining excellent safety record to attract customers

More Than a Ticket Price

For wealthy individuals willing and able to pay the steep price, a moon trip offers incredible experiences that are literally out of this world, including:

• Witnessing Earth rise over the lunar horizon
• Seeing distant stars and planets unfiltered by atmosphere
• Experiencing weightlessness and low lunar gravity
• Walking on the moon’s surface (on landed missions)
• Joining an exclusive club of lunar explorers

While the dollar value seems astronomical, the chance to travel to the moon is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that cannot be valued. For many, it would be the adventure of a lifetime.

Final Words

The next era of lunar travel is still in its infancy, with a price tag only the ultra-wealthy can afford. But each small step brings us closer to the day when average citizens can make their childhood moon voyage dreams reality just as pioneers like Columbus opened transoceanic travel. For now, we can only imagine the enormous price tag such a trip must command.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does a moon trip take.

A roundtrip journey to the moon for space tourists is estimated to take roughly one week – 3 days transit to the moon, 1-2 days in lunar orbit and potentially on the surface, and 3 days return to Earth. The exact duration depends on the launch window, flight path, and itinerary.

Would we survive without the moon?

While a moonless Earth would have some effects like impacting tidal patterns, seasons, and nocturnal illumination, humankind would be able to survive without the physical presence of the moon in space. The cultural and inspirational significance of the moon may be harder to replace.

How high can you jump on the moon?

Due to the moon’s lower gravity, approximately one-sixth that of Earth’s, human’s leaping abilities are greatly enhanced. Astronauts have jumped as high as 4 feet vertically on the lunar surface with their EVA suits on. Without a suit, jumps above 10 feet would be possible.

Why did we stop going to the moon?

After achieving the goal of landing astronauts on the moon during the Apollo program, national interest and funding declined, turning attention instead to near-Earth missions like developing space stations. Recent initiatives like NASA’s Artemis program aim to bring humans back to the lunar surface.

What is Google Moon?

Google Moon is a feature in Google Earth that provides detailed lunar maps and imagery from lunar spacecraft used to virtually explore the moon’s surface. It supports tagging and tour creation to annotate areas of interest.

can I go to space so I can die in quite please ? I don’t want to do my GCSEs

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The cost to travel to the moon, mars and beyond.

Whether you're interested in boldly going where no man has gone before or simply want to stop by the moon for the first time in a few decades, traveling beyond our world has been a dream of many for generations. As fewer and fewer corners of our own globe remain unexplored, mankind has begun to look beyond for new worlds to explore.

Zelle Facebook Marketplace Scam: How To Recognize and Avoid This Scam Learn: States Whose Economies Are Failing vs. States Whose Economies Are Thriving

However, the cost of venturing forth into the great recesses of space isn't cheap. If humans are going to really explore our own solar system -- let alone whatever is beyond -- they had better be ready to spend and spend lavishly. Because whether it's a self-contained moon colony or a giant solar sail to carry a ship to Alpha Centauri, the price tag associated with turning sci-fi into reality is steep indeed. So, here are the costs of space exploration -- hypothetical or otherwise -- in our own solar system and beyond its boundaries .

Cost To Launch Stuff Into Space

Cost: $10,000 per pound

One of the biggest costs for any space mission comes with just trying to escape the gravitational pull of the Earth. And before you really begin to dream about massive spacecraft traveling far away, you should know that weight is a primary concern for anything you plan to shoot into space.

The current cost to put something into orbit is a staggering $10,000 per pound, according to Business Insider. So, while it might seem a bit draconian that NASA limits astronauts to just 1 1/2 pounds of personal items, it's also worth remembering that NASA spends $15,000 just to send that stuff along.

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Cost To Go To the Moon

Cost:  $140 billion -- for the first 9 trips

While a lot of the technology has changed since the 1960s, and costs have almost certainly dropped over the past 60 years, projecting future costs should consider some from the past. As such, the cost of the Apollo Program and its nine manned missions to the moon is a good starting point.

The U.S. government spent--independent of infrastructure costs--a whopping $23.6 billion on manned spaceflight from 1959 to 1973. Taking that as 1973 dollars, that's roughly equivalent to a little over $157 billion in dollars today, or about $9.3 billion a year.

Cost To Go To Space, Come Back and Go Again

Cost: $1.56 billion per mission

The next stage of space exploration included the U.S. Shuttle Program, which used spacecraft that could venture into space and return to Earth. When it was first announced in 1972, the program was intended to reduce costs, with some imagining a future where space flights occurred once a week and cost as little as $20 million. That's a steep price, even if you are a member of N'SYNC.

The space shuttle program was eventually shuttered after 134 flights at a cost of $209 billion. It never made more than nine flights in a year, and at a cost of over $1.5 billion a flight, it was ultimately 75 times more per flight than the proposed $20 million.

Cost of a Space Station

Cost:  $125 billion

Traveling to distant worlds will most likely require setting out from a space station, given the incredible cost and difficulty of escaping Earth's gravity into orbit. As such, a space station is likely to be an important staging ground for some future missions. The total cost for the current International Space Station (ISS) has only been estimated by the European Space Station, which pegged it at €100 billion--or $112.8 billion--in 2013. And the costs have only gone up in the last decade, including an estimated $3 billion-$4 billion a year that the United States alone contributes to the station's annual maintenance.

Cost To Resupply a Space Station

Cost:  almost $200 million per mission

The cost of the space shuttle program ultimately brought it to an end as a new raft of private companies have started offering to contract space launches. In 2008, NASA awarded contracts to Elon Musk's SpaceX and Orbital ATK -- now owned by Northrop Grumman -- worth a total of $5.9 billion for some 31 resupply missions. That comes to just under $200 million a mission to keep the space station up and running.

Cost To Visit Space If You're Not an Astronaut

Cost: $52 million a seat

The public-private partnerships developing between NASA and Boeing, SpaceX and others are also creating some intriguing possibilities for space tourism. In the near term, the shuttles being sent to resupply the ISS won't have NASA taking up every seat with its personnel. So, when NASA doesn't buy all the seats, someone who isn't an astronaut can just tag along for a chance to visit space. The price tag? SpaceX is planning on selling the seats for a mere $55 million apiece for a 3-day space trip, according to Tech Times. No word on whether or not that comes with a complimentary package of peanuts.

Cost To Travel To Mercury

Cost: $1.9 billion

It's not entirely clear why a human might want to travel to Mercury, where temperatures can range from minus 280  degrees Fahrenheit at the poles to 800  degrees Fahrenheit  in sunlight, but researchers have sent spacecraft to the closest planet to the sun and they're planning to do so again. The first European mission to Mercury launched last year at a cost of some 1.7 billion euros -- or about $1.9 billion.

Cost To Travel To Venus

Cost: $147.7 million

Venus has seen a fair bit of human hardware over the years. The Soviet Union made several successful landings on its surface with a probe and NASA's Magellan mission spent four years mapping 98% of the planet's surface. However, for the best understanding of what the cost to return would come to, the European Space Agency's Venus Explorer launched in 2005 and spent nine years studying the nearby planet until it ran out of propellant. All told, the Venus Express proved to be very cost-effective, costing just $110 million in 2005, or $166.8 million in 2022 dollars.

Cost To Travel To Mars

Cost: $828.8 million

While the current question might be what it costs to send a person to Mars, the cost of simply getting to the red planet is pretty clear--there have been a multitude of missions sending a craft to the planet and onto its surface. The first such visits were the Viking program in the 1970s that sent two probes to Mars at a total cost of roughly $1 billion--a little over $7.6 billion adjusted for inflation. However, NASA was clearly just dipping its toe in the pool back then because it's been back repeatedly in both the Mars Scout Program and the Mars Exploration Rover program. NASA's present mission to Mars, the InSight Mars Lander, touched down on the red planet in 2018 with a price tag of $828.8 million.

Cost To Travel To Jupiter

Cost: $4.7 billion

The solar system's largest planet has been the focus of several exploratory missions ever since Pioneer 10 and 11 whizzed past it for the first time in the early 1970s. Now there are more missions planned to visit the gas giant and some of its 79 moons, including NASA's planned mission to explore the moon of Europa, which appears to have the potential of supporting life. Just remember, if you're ever asked to be part of a mission to Jupiter with a supercomputer named Hal, say no. Some things aren't worth it at any price.

Cost To Travel To Saturn

Cost: $3.9 billion

Journeys to Saturn might just be an example of seeing a major landmark before it's gone. After all, NASA recently updated its projections to reveal that the rate of "ring drain" is a "worst-case scenario." Granted, it will take 100 million years before the iconic rings are gone. The reason scientists were able to make those predictions was the wealth of data provided by the Casini space probe over 20 years -- a mission that had a total cost of $3.9 billion.

Cost To Travel To Uranus

Cost: $2.19 billion (hopefully)

The cost to visit Uranus is an important question -- the original proposal to send a probe there was scrapped in the 1970s when NASA's budget was cut and the program's $700 million price tag made it untenable. While the program was salvaged in the form of the Voyager program, the 50,000-or-so miles that Voyager II came from Uranus is as close as any man-made object has gotten. And while NASA has made Uranus a relatively low-priority goal, it does still have some plans in the works. In 2015, NASA started a feasibility study of a mission to Uranus that could be completed on a budget of $2 billion, inflation-adjusted.

Cost To Travel To Neptune

Cost: $500 million

Much like Uranus, the closest mankind has ever gotten to Neptune is a distant flyby by Voyager in 1989. What's more, there hasn't been a lot of effort to launch an effort to get back. But, there has recently been a spark of hope for big-time Neptune fans as the Trident Proposal was submitted as part of NASA's highly competitive Discovery program for missions with a budget of $500 million or less.

Cost To Travel To Pluto

Before anyone starts shouting, one should be interested in exploring Pluto whether it's technically a planet or not. And that is just what NASA did in 2015 when the New Horizons probe flew by the distant planet. It was important that the probe traveled when it did, as the next time Pluto's orbit would be close enough would be in another 200 years. Fortunately for NASA, it managed to push the project through and launch inside of its window -- all with a price tag of just $500 million.

Cost To Travel To an Asteroid

Cost: $150 million

Of course, visiting Pluto does bring up the question of what it might cost to visit other, ahem, nonplanets. The most recent journey was performed by the Japanese Space Agency JAXA and successfully landed two hopping robots on the asteroid Ryugu, where they will examine the floating rock to learn more about asteroids. The total cost of the mission? That would be 16.4 billion yen, or about $150 million.

Cost To Travel Beyond Our Solar System

Cost: $5.4 billion

The first spacecraft to leave the solar system and actually enter interstellar space was Voyager 1, which left our solar system in 2012. That should give you a sense of why interstellar travel is so difficult because the probe was launched in 1977. However, if all you want to do is get to the great beyond, the cost of the entire Voyager program came to $865 million in 1972, the equivalent of about $6.1 billion today.

Cost To Partake in Interstellar Playlist

One of the more interesting wrinkles to the story of the Voyager craft is what went along with the spacecraft when scientists realized they would be flying off into distant worlds mankind might never know: a record. Specifically, a gold-plated record filled with everything from whale songs to bluesman Blind Willie Johnson. It was an attempt to encapsulate the planet Earth and the human race through sound. And while the original records are, far, far away, there was a campaign to release the contents of the record on vinyl, and you can now get it for $160 on Amazon.

Cost of Modern Interstellar Spaceflight

Cost: $20 trillion to $174 trillion

Of course, the fact that the only thing that's ever gotten out of the solar system was built in the 1970s presents certain limitations. One potential plan -- also from the 1970s -- with a goal of actually seeking out life elsewhere in the universe was called Project Daedalus. Developed by the British Interplanetary Society, it would fly to Barnard's Star (six light years away) and explore the solar system there. Unfortunately, though, this might remain a dream for quite a while longer: The estimated cost of the project ranges from $20 trillion to $174 trillion.

Cost To Colonize the Moon

Cost: $10 billion

Of course, maybe instead of trying to venture to places so far away that would take multiple human lifetimes to reach you could consider setting up camp somewhere closer. If you're talking about the colonization of the moon--and some people are--NASA astrobiologist Chris McCay estimates that a small, starter moon base could be had for as little as $10 billion.

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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : The Cost To Travel To the Moon, Mars and Beyond

What will space tourists get when they fly with SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic? Spacesuits, sleeping bags ... and Jeff Bezos

• Virgin Galactic's $250,000 ticket to the edge of space includes a spacesuit.
• Passengers paying $55 million for SpaceX's mission to the ISS get sleeping bags, hygiene products.
• Blue Origin's $28 million spaceflight comes with a seat next to Jeff Bezos.
• See more stories on Insider's business page .

The era of space tourism has dawned.

Richard Branson  is scheduled to blast off in Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity on Sunday for the company's first fully-crewed rocket-powered test flight .

If the launch goes ahead as planned, he'll be 9 days ahead of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who plans to travel to the edge of space on July 20 in Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft.

Meanwhile, SpaceX's private mission with Axiom Space is scheduled to fly four passengers to the International Space Station (ISS) in early 2022.

Read more: As Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson blast off, here are 11 of the most exciting space startups according to VCs

The journeys certainly aren't cheap. Trips aboard Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity will cost passengers $250,000 apiece. A seat on Blue Origin's New Shepard craft was auctioned off at $28 million in June. And the four passengers traveling to the ISS on SpaceX's Crew Dragon will pay a cool $55 million a head.

The question is, what bang will they get for their buck?

SpaceX and Axiom

A ticket for Axiom's mission to the ISS will include:

• Mission planning
• Life support
• Medical support
• Crew provisions
• Eight days aboard the ISS

Staying on the ISS costs the astronauts about $6.8 million a day, NASA told The Verge in January.

According to NASA's 2021 price list , it should cost $2,000 per crew member per day for food and drinks aboard the ISS. It'll also cost each person as much as $1,500 per day   for things like clothing, hygiene products, office supplies, and sleeping bags.

Related stories

Blue origin.

The unnamed winner of Blue Origin's auction will accompany Jeff Bezos and his brother on an 11-minute trip on the New Shepard craft. For their $28 million they will be getting:

• On-site accommodation

Blue Origin hasn't yet disclosed commercial seat prices for flights on New Shepard.

Before stepping aboard, passengers must show they can deal with heights, walk on uneven surfaces, and support up to three times their weight, Insider previously reported.

"There are a couple days of training in advance of the flight," a Blue Origin spokesperson told Insider in June. "Some of the training includes learning procedures for getting into and out of the capsule, a mission simulation, and learning techniques for how to move around in zero-g."

Virgin Galactic

Around 600 customers across 58 countries have already forked out up to $250,000  for a seat on Virgin Galactic's Unity spacecraft, which will take them to the edge of space.

A spokesperson from Virgin Galactic told Insider that the ticket includes:

• A spacesuit

Unlike Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket, Unity won't pass the Kármán line, an imaginary boundary between the atmosphere and space. When Virgin Galactic's Unity reaches this height, passengers will experience several minutes of weightlessness before the spacecraft returns to Earth.

Branson, 70, has gone through months of training in preparation for his flight, which is scheduled for July 11.

Watch: How SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic plan on taking you to space

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Four astronauts will venture around the Moon on Artemis II, the first crewed mission on NASA's path to establishing a long-term presence at the Moon for science and exploration through Artemis. The 10-day flight will test NASA's foundational human deep space exploration capabilities, the SLS rocket, Orion spacecraft, for the first time with astronauts.

Artemis II builds on the success of the uncrewed Artemis I in 2022, and will demonstrate a broad range of capabilities needed on deep space missions. The Artemis II flight test will be NASA’s first mission with crew aboard the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft and will pave the way to land the first woman on the Moon on Artemis III. 

Mission Type

Mission Duration

Mission Overview

First Artemis Flight With Crew Important Step on Long-term Return to the Moon, Missions to Mars

Astronauts on their first flight aboard NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft will venture around the Moon. Their mission will be to confirm all of the spacecraft’s systems operate as designed with crew aboard in the actual environment of deep space.

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Developing Artemis II Training

NASA Moves Artemis II Rocket Adapter, Prepares for Shipment

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NASA Invites Media to Watch Artemis II Rocket Adapter Roll Out

A Practiced Escape

The commander, the pilot, and the mission specialists heading to the Moon on Artemis II.

The Spaceport

The systems and facilities that assemble and launch rockets and spacecraft for NASA’s Artemis missions.

The Launch: SLS Rocket

The Artemis II mission will launch the crew of four astronauts from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Block 1 configuration of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. 

The Ride: Orion

During the Artemis II mission, the crew will assess the performance of the life support systems necessary to generate breathable air and remove the carbon dioxide and water vapor produced when the astronauts breathe, talk, or exercise. The crew will also test the systems during exercise periods, where the crew’s metabolic rate is the highest, and a sleep period, where the crew’s metabolic rate is the lowest. 

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NASA's Artemis 2 moon mission: Live updates

Nasa's artemis 2 mission is returning astronauts to the moon for the first time since 1972. see live mission updates here..

You can launch a Space Launch System of your own with this Estes NASA SLS model rocket for a 1:200 scale version of NASA's moon megarocket. Read more about it .

NASA's Artemis 2 lunar mission in 2024 will send the first astronauts around the moon in nearly 50 years. The mission will launch four astronauts around the moon on a lunar flyby aboard an Orion spacecraft using a Space Launch System rocket. 

Artemis 2 is an eight-day mission that will send three NASA astronauts and one Canadian Space Agency astronaut around the moon on a free-return trajectory. It is the last test flight before the Artemis 3 crewed moon landing mission in 2025.

See our complete coverage of the Artemis 2 mission below.

Meet the Artemis 2 crew | Artemis 2 explained |   Latest news

Tariq Malik is the Editor-in-Chief of Space.com and has been covering human spaceflight for more than 18 years and space exploration overall for more than 20 years. He covered the final 22 space shuttle missions and NASA's ongoing International Space Station and Artemis program. 

Elizabeth Howell first became interested in space after watching the movie "Apollo 13" as a teenager in 1996, kickstarting a lifelong fascination with the 1960s and 1970s human lunar landing program. She has watched five human spaceflight launches since and participated in a simulated Mars mission.

NASA's Artemis 2 rocket core stage arrives near launch pad in Florida

An astronaut crew's rocket made its last major journey on Earth before blasting off for the moon.

The core stage of Artemis 2 's rocket came to NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida on Tuesday (July 23). The rocket stage was offloaded from NASA's Pegasus barge, which shipped the rocket stage 900 miles (1,450 km) by water from NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, in a seven-hour operation aided by remote controlled vehicles known as self-propelled modular transporters.

The 212-foot (65-meter) stage then made the half-mile (0.8 km) journey to NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building where it will eventually be joined to the rest of the Space Launch System rocket for a launch no earlier than September 2025.

Read more: Watch NASA's massive Artemis 2 rocket core stage arrive in Florida. Next stop: the moon (video, photos)

NASA livestream concludes

NASA just finished its livestream from the Kennedy Space Center area regarding the arrival of the Artemis 2 core stage at the facility. Watch Space.com for more coverage.

NASA live has begun with Artemis 2 core stage!

NASA has begun its livestream from the Kennedy Space Center area to broadcast the arrival of the Artemis 2 core stage at the facility. Watch live on X here .

Artemis 2 core stage to arrive at KSC

NASA will livestream the arrival of the Artemis 2 core stage at NASA's  Kennedy Space Center Wednesday (July 23) on X, the agency announced . The livestream will start at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT).

NASA 's  Space Launch System  (SLS) Artemis 2 booster left the agency's  Michoud Assembly Facility , in New Orleans on July 16 for a journey on NASA's Pegasus barge to KSC, near Orlando. The core stage has reached the Floridian shore as of Monday (July 21), but has not yet gone on to KSC grounds, according to social media posts.

Artemis 2 is the first human lunar mission since Apollo 17 in 1972 and plans to send four astronauts around the moon no earlier than September 2025.

Artemis 2's NASA backup astronaut named to moon mission

NASA astronaut Andre Douglas will serve as backup for the three U.S. astronauts on the  Artemis 2  round-the-moon flight, the agency  announced today  (July 3). 

Douglas will back up commander  Reid Wiseman , pilot  Victor Glover  and mission specialist  Christina Koch .  Canadian Space Agency  (CSA) astronaut  Jeremy Hansen , who is also a mission specialist on Artemis 2, already has a backup: astronaut Jenni Gibbons, also with CSA.

"I've always been fascinated with new things. I like to develop things," Douglas told Space.com in March about the Artemis program , which later this decade aims to put astronauts on the moon's surface for the first time since 1972. "I really believe in pushing ourselves, in understanding what is our true potential: both me as an individual, [and] within all of us as a species."

"This is the perfect place to be, where we're going to push that boundary," he said.

Read more: NASA announces Artemis 2 moon mission backup astronaut — Andre Douglas will support 2025 lunar liftoff

that time when 3 moon astronauts once flew, supersonic-style, by a NASA lunar rocket on the pad

Artemis 2 commander Reid Wiseman helped organize a special event in 2022: he was part of a group of astronauts flying the famous T-38 jet trainers past the Artemis 1 SLS on the launch pad on Aug. 23, 2022. 

Nobody knew it back then, but three of the four Artemis 2 crew were in the tight formation: Wiseman, NASA mission specialist  Christina Koch  and  Canadian Space Agency  mission specialist  Jeremy Hansen . (Only absent was NASA pilot  Victor Glover , who was away on other duties at the time.)

Read more: What's it like to buzz an Artemis SLS moon rocket with a supersonic jet? NASA's Artemis 2 commander tells all

Artemis 2 moon astronauts meet President Biden

NASA's Artemis 2  moon crew, led by  NASA , met with U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday (Dec. 14) and talked with reporters afterwards about the support Biden is offering for the historic mission, the first to fly to  the moon  with humans since 1972.

The crew talked to Biden "about their training and science plans for the mission, set to launch in late 2024," according to a small update on  NASA HQ Photo's X account  (formerly Twitter). Aside from Wiseman, the Artemis 2 astronauts include NASA pilot  Victor Glover  (the first person of color to leave  low Earth orbit ), NASA mission specialist  Christina Koch  (the first woman) and  Canadian Space Agency  astronaut  Jeremy Hansen  (the first non-American).

Read more: Artemis 2 astronauts meet President Biden to talk America's next trip to the moon

Artemis 2 moon mission hardware building up at NASA centers

NASA's Artemis 2  mission remains on track to send four astronauts around the  moon in late 2024. The crew is continuing their training while the hardware that will carry them to space — the Orion capsule and giant  Space Launch System  (SLS) rocket — is being readied at different  NASA  centers.

Read more: NASA building giant Artemis 2 moon rocket ahead of 2024 launch

Artemis 2 astronauts autograph moon rocket

The  Artemis 2  crew signed their names Monday (Nov. 27) on the adapter for their  Orion spacecraft , which will be mounted on top of the massive  Space Launch System  (SLS) rocket. The rocket will send them around the moon in 2024.

The four astronauts, wearing cleanroom outfits, were visiting NASA's  Marshall Space Flight Center  in Huntsville, Alabama. The  adapter will be under Orion during the launch, the first human one to the moon since 1972.

Read more: Artemis 2 moon astronauts autograph their own rocket 1 year before launch

Canadian Space Agency names backup astronaut for Artemis 2

The  Canadian Space Agency  may bring the third Canadian woman into space as soon as 2024, should she be needed for a moon mission.

Fire scientist Jenni Gibbons was named Tuesday (Nov. 22) as backup for  Jeremy Hansen , the CSA astronaut flying around the moon with  Artemis 2  in 2024. The CSA is a signatory to the NASA -led Artemis Accords that has two purposes: peaceful space exploration norms and for some participants, moon missions.

That wasn't the only big space news for CSA on Tuesday. Canada typically receives missions every six years based on its ISS contributions, and current spacecraft capacity. The next long-duration mission will be with Joshua Kutryk, a test pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force, will fly on the first operational  Boeing  Starliner mission in 2025 for a half-year mission to the ISS.

Read more:   Canada assigns astronauts to launch on Boeing's Starliner, back up Artemis 2 moon mission

Artemis 2 readies for astronaut moon launch 1 year after Artemis 1

Space fans, get ready to start your moon engines.

NASA's  Artemis 1  uncrewed  moon  mission  lifted off  from NASA's  Kennedy Space Center  (KSC) in Florida on Nov. 16, 2022. One year later, the next moon  rocket  ride for astronauts is in testing for a new mission that could launch in late 2024.

The crewed mission, known as  Artemis 2 , will send four astronauts around the moon. As the quartet continue their complex training, their  Space Launch System  (SLS) rocket, side boosters,  Orion spacecraft  and other key elements are under assembly in various parts of the United States.

Read more: 1 year after Artemis 1 launch, NASA readies Artemis 2 to shoot for the moon again (video)

Artemis 2 moon spacecraft powers on ahead of 2024 mission

The  Orion spacecraft  for  Artemis 2 powered on this week successfully ahead of its historic moon  mission with four astronauts in 2024.

Seeing power flow to Orion was a large milestone following the moment when the American-made crew module and European Service Module (ESM) joined at NASA's  Kennedy Space Center  in mid-October, according to the  European Space Agency  (ESA).

Once ready, Orion will carry  NASA 's  Reid Wiseman ,  Victor Glover ,  Christina Koch  and the  Canadian Space Agency 's  Jeremy Hansen , who are undergoing 18 months of training to get ready for the first human moon mission in 52 years.

Read more: NASA powers up Artemis 2 Orion spacecraft ahead of 2024 moon mission

Boosters assemble! Artemis 2 moon rockets come together in new video

An astronaut moon rocket comes together at NASA in a new epic video.

Twin rocket boosters for  Artemis 2 , now being assembled at NASA's  Kennedy Space Center , will assist the agency's powerful  Space Launch System  rocket as it sends four astronauts on a round-the- moon mission in 2024.

You can watch KSC teams piece together parts of each booster's aft assembly – the booster part that steers them during flight.

Read more: Watch NASA build Artemis 2 astronaut moon rocket boosters ahead of 2024 launch (video)

Canadian astronaut ready for the moon, his first mission in space

After 15 years waiting for space, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen  is getting ready for the moon . He is one of the mission specialists aboard  Artemis 2 , which aims to launch four astronauts in 2024, and says the first seven months of training for the NASA mission is reinforcing to him all the years of experience he already has in assisting with human space missions and space policy.

"The only thing that does feel different is that there is this personal aspect of, 'I've been working to actually fly in space and do the astronaut aspects'," Hansen told Space.com in an exclusive 30-minute interview on Friday (Oct. 27.) "It does feel like it's getting closer, and much closer, than it's ever felt before. So there is that sense, and that is really fun for me."

Read more: Artemis 2 moon astronaut says crew is ready for ambitious 2024 mission

Artemis 2 mobile launcher soaked in 'water flow test'

The mobile launcher for Artemis 2 , a big moon mission, got soaked Tuesday (Oct. 24) in a mission safety test ahead of the 2024 mission.

The mobile launcher that will be used to launch the powerful  Space Launch System  rocket had a "water flow test", the third at NASA's  Kennedy Space Center  to "verify the overpressure protection and sound suppression system is ready for launch," NASA officials wrote in  a brief statement  Thursday (Oct. 26).

"During liftoff, 400,000 gallons (1.5 million liters) of water will rush onto the pad to help protect NASA's SLS rocket,  Orion spacecraft , mobile launcher, and launch pad from any over pressurization and extreme sound produced during ignition and liftoff," agency officials added.

Read more: Watch NASA's Artemis 2 mobile rocket launcher get soaked during water deluge test (video)

Orion spacecraft for Artemis astronaut moon mission assembled

NASA's astronaut moon spacecraft is under assembly. The  Orion spacecraft  for  Artemis 2 's round-the- moon  mission in 2024 had its crew and service modules joined at  NASA  on Oct. 19. 

More tests are planned on the joined pieces, including power-on examinations and altitude chamber testing. It's a significant milestone for the mission that will carry four astronauts to lunar realms in just over a year.

Read more: Artemis 2 Orion spacecraft comes together ahead of 2024 moon mission (photos)

NASA shows off Artemis moon astronauts' electric car for launch pad rides

NASA recently displayed the shiny inside of its new fleet of astronaut cars from Canoo Technologies Inc., all assigned to the  Artemis program . It was the first look at the interior ahead of the debut crew  Artemis 2 , using the all-electric vehicles to get the the launch pad for their round-the-moon mission starting in 2024.

The moon  crew's car interior came to light at a racing event: The Formula 1 (F1) Grand Prix of the United States in Austin, Texas between Oct. 20 and 22. Artemis 2 astronauts  Reid Wiseman  (from  NASA ) and  Jeremy Hansen  (from the  Canadian Space Agency ) also were there on Oct. 22 talking with some of the racing companies.

Read more: NASA's Artemis moon astronauts will ride to the launch pad in these sleek electric cars (photos)

Artemis 2 core stage faces welding issues: report

While Artemis 2 remains on track for its round-the-moon mission with astronauts in 2024, welding issues on the core stage of its massive rocket are ongoing, a report suggests.

The Space Launch System  (SLS) rocket's core stage, expected to launch the four-astronaut  Artemis 2  around  the moon , is facing unspecified "weld issues" during assembly at NASA's  Marshall Space Flight Center  in Alabama. The issue was reported in  NASA Spaceflight and NASA did not immediately respond to queries from Space.com about the matter.

Read more: Welding issues stall Artemis 2 moon rocket's assembly, but 2024 mission still on track: report

How Artemis 2 moon astronauts will live in space

The Artemis 2 astronauts and other personnel are testing living activities the crew will do on the 10-day moon mission, including sleeping, eating and of course, going to the bathroom. The four astronauts will spend all of their time in the Orion spacecraft , learning how to live and work together in a small space.

Read more: Here's how Artemis 2 astronauts will exercise, sleep and use the toilet on their moon mission (photos)

Artemis 2 moon astronauts rehearse for launch day

The  Artemis 2  moon astronauts practiced for launch day at NASA's  Kennedy Space Center  in Florida on Wednesday (Sept. 20), complete with spacesuits and a drive to the launch pad to ascend the mobile launcher.

"I just had images of all those Apollo launches and shuttle launches that I saw as a kid and it was unreal," Artemis 2 pilot Victor Glover said in a NASA statement . "I actually had to stop and just stay in the moment to really let it all sink in."

Aboard the round-the- moon mission, slated to launch in late 2024, will be  NASA  commander  Reid Wiseman , NASA pilot  Victor Glover  (the first person of color to leave  Earth  orbit), NASA mission specialist  Christina Koch  (the first woman to do so) and the  Canadian Space Agency 's  Jeremy Hansen  (the first non-American).

Read more: Artemis 2 astronaut crew suits up for moon launch dress rehearsal (photos, video)

Artemis 2 moon astronauts do splashdown training with US Navy

The Artemis 2  astronauts worked with the U.S. Navy team recently on splashdown operations. The Navy and NASA are training to recover the four-person crew, which will circle around the moon no earlier than November 2024, after they complete their 10-day mission.

While the crew familiarized themselves with the team and procedures, NASA and the Department of Defense practiced recovery operations nearby San Diego using equipment such as helicopters, boats and the USS John P. Murtha.

Read more: See Artemis 2 moon astronauts train with US Navy for Orion splashdown (photos, video)

NASA finishes first practice countdown for Artemis 2

The  Artemis 2  launching team at NASA recently finished their first dress rehearsal to send four astronauts safely into space to go around the moon.

This crucial "sim" is one of many that NASA will do for the November 2024 mission. The mission includes NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

Read more: NASA practices for 2024 launch of Artemis 2 moon mission

Artemis 2 astronauts deep in moon training

The first moon crew in 52 years, Artemis 2 , includes a lot of diversity. They've been to the International Space Station , the U.S. Senate, in combat and in many other locations. 

Now as the foursome  — NASA's Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and the Canadian Space Agency's Jeremy Hansen — get ready for the moon , lead training officer Jacki Mahaffey told Space.com how she is using their experience in training.

Read more: How Artemis 2 astronauts are training for their 2024 moon mission

Artemis 2 crew member praises NASA supersonic jet

A moon astronaut recently honored the decades of supersonic trainer work that NASA has put in with its T-38s.

Artemis 2  Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut  Jeremy Hansen  praised the supersonic T-38 trainer jet for its ability to keep astronauts on their toes while in flight. "We use these airplanes because they're challenging," Hansen  said in a video  released Tuesday (July 18) on the CSA's social media channels. 

Manufacturer  Northrop Grumman says  more than 72,000 U.S. Air Force pilots have trained in the T-38 since it first rolled off the line in 1961. Though it was only manufactured until 1972, more than 500 continue to be used by both the Air Force and NASA.

Read more: Artemis 2 moon astronaut explains risk of flying NASA's supersonic training jet

3 Orion spacecraft line up for their moon missions

Three crew-carrying spacecraft are getting ready for their big moon missions.

The  Orion  capsules for the Artemis 2, Artemis 3 and Artemis 4  moon  missions are coming together at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida under stewardship of contractor Lockheed Martin.

"The future of @NASA_Orion is looking pretty good," Lockheed officials  wrote on Twitter  Friday (July 14) of the three spacecraft, each of which is expected to ferry astronauts to the moon starting in late 2024 or so. 

Read more: These 3 Orion spacecraft will carry Artemis astronauts to the moon (photo) 

Artemis 2 astronaut plays cowboy at Calgary Stampede

Canadian  Artemis 2  moon astronaut Jeremy Hansen, partnering with his  borrowed horse Cisco , pretended to be a cowboy at Canada's Calgary Stampede fair last week in the western province of Alberta. 

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, who flew on the space shuttle Columbia in 1986 while a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, also visited the event. The two appeared in flight suits and cowboy hats as part of the celebration of cowboy culture, which annually draws a million participants.

Read more: Yeehaw! NASA chief and Artemis 2 moon astronaut play cowboy for a day (photo)

Artemis 2 astronaut completes vision quest

An Artemis 2 astronaut recently finished a vision quest to help prepare for his upcoming trip around the moon.

Jeremy Hansen recently participated in the four-day Indigenous rite of passage as part of  Artemis 2  mission training, the  Canadian Space Agency  astronaut tweeted.

"I would like to express my gratitude to Anishinaabe Elder David Courchene III 'Sabe' for the gracious invitation," Hansen  said of the ceremony , which took place at Turtle Lodge in Manitoba on the lands of the Sagkeeng First Nation (also known as Fort Alexander).

On Tuesday (June 13), Hansen added he has completed the ceremony and "I have a renewed appreciation for all that Mother Earth provides, especially water."

Read more: Artemis 2 astronaut goes on vision quest to prepare for moon mission

Artemis 2 mission benefits from Canadian winter experience

Cold weather is helping to boost the fortunes of Canada in space, including its contributions to Artemis 2 .

Astronaut Jeremy Hansen will the first non-American to leave low Earth orbit, alongside three NASA crewmates, no earlier than 2024. Canadian leader and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau argues that Canada's winter experience is one big reason for its success in space.

Trudeau emphasized that working in Canada's north helped with numerous kinds of technology, including the Canadarm robotic arm series that has provided Canadian astronaut seats for nearly 40 years.

The Arctic in particular represents "some of the harshest environments" available to humans, and Trudeau joked that when asked about why Canada does so well in space, he responds: "Obvious. Winter."

Read more: Winter is coming: Artemis 2 moon mission gets boost from Canadian cold

Artemis 2 astronauts thrilled for moon mission

The four astronauts of NASA's Artemis 2 mission are thrilled, to say the least, to be on the crew that will send the first humans to the moon in more than 50 years. You can read our full story here . 

Set to launch on a Space Launch System megarocket in 2024, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency will fly around the moon, much like Apollo 8, on their Orion spacecraft. 

Here's what they had to say of the mission today:

Commander Reid Wiseman: "This is a global effort, Artemis 2, and it's only going to get larger with Artemis 3 and beyond as we get private spaceflight involved. SpaceX is building our lander for Artemis 3. So to the NASA workforce, to our program managers, our center directors that are here, the amazing political support that we feel right now to bring our country together to bring our entire world together to go explore to get to Mars and beyond, we say a huge thank you."

Pilot Victor Glover: " We need to celebrate this moment in human history. Because Artemis two is more than a mission to the moon and it's more than a mission that has to happen before we send people to the surface of the moon. It is the next step on the journey that gets humanity to Mars. "Human spaceflight is like a relay race, and that baton has been passed generation to generation and from crew member to crew member from the Gemini, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Apollo Soyuz, Skylab Mir, the shuttle, International Space Station, commercial crew and and now the Artemis missions. We understand our role in that. And when we have the privilege of having that baton. We're going to do our best to run a good race to make you proud. I pray that God will bless this mission. But I also pray that we can continue to serve as a source of inspiration for cooperation and peace, not just between nations, but in our own nation." 

Mission specialist Christina Koch:  "When I think about this mission, that's a relay race with international partners, it's all so awesome in and of itself. 

"We are going to launch for Kennedy Space Center to the work of the exploration Ground Systems team. We're going to hear the words go for launch on top of the most powerful rocket NASA's ever made the Space Launch System, and we're gonna ride that rocket for eight minutes into Earth orbit. We're not going to go to the moon right away. We're gonna stay in an amazing high orbit, reaching a peak of tens of thousands of miles while we test out all the systems on Orion and see how it maneuvers in space. And then if everything was good, we're heading to the moon.

"It will be a four day journey, going a quarter of a million miles, continuing to test out every bit of Orion going around the far side of the moon, heading home going through the Earth's atmosphere at over 25,000 miles per hour and splashing down in the Pacific. So am I excited? Absolutely. But my real question is Are you excited? I asked that because the one thing I'm most excited about is that we are going to carry your excitement, your aspirations, your dreams with us on this mission. Artemis to your mission."

Mission specialist Jeremy Hansen: "Our scientists or engineers, the Canadian Space Agency, the Canadian Armed Forces across government, all of our leadership working together under a vision to take step by step and all of those have added up to this moment where a Canadian is going to the moon with our international partnership and it is glorious."

Artemis 2 Moon Astronauts Revealed!

NASA chief Bill Nelson has unveiled the first astronaut crew to visit the moon in more than 50 years. They Artemis 2 crew are:

Commander Reid Wiseman, NASA

Reid Wiseman, 47, spent 165 days in Earth orbit on his first mission, a 2014 flight to the ISS. A native of Baltimore, Maryland, and former fighter pilot for the U.S. Navy, he was selected for NASA's 20th astronaut class in 2009. Wiseman recently served as chief of NASA's astronaut office from 2020 to 2022.

Pilot Victor Glover, NASA

Victor Glover, 46, became a NASA astronaut in 2013. He flew as pilot of SpaceX's first operational crewed spaceflight (Crew-1) and logged 167 days on the ISS in 2021. Born in Pomona, California, he is an engineer and captain in the U.S. Navy. Glover was the first Black astronaut to serve on a space station crew.

Mission Specialist Christina Koch, NASA

Christina Koch, 44, was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan and raised in Jacksonville, North Carolina. A member of NASA's 21st astronaut class selected in 2013, Koch set a record aboard the International Space Station for the single longest mission by a woman at 328 days. During that 2019 stay, she was also one-half of the first-ever all-female spacewalk. Koch is an engineer and former U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) station chief.

Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen, Canadian Space Agency

Jeremy Hansen, 47, was chosen to join Canada's astronaut corps in 2009. A colonel in the Royal Canadian Air Force, he was born in London, Ontario. Though Artemis 2 will be his first time in space, Hansen served as an aquanaut aboard the Aquarius underwater lab in 2014 and took a turn as a "cavenaut" as part of the European Space Agency's CAVES astronaut training course the year prior.

NASA Artemis 2 moon crew announcement underway

NASA's Artemis 2 moon astronaut crew reveal is underway live on NASA TV. 

Speaking before a huge crowd at the Ellington Field in Houston, NASA's chief astronaut Joe Acaba began by inviting the entire astronaut corps to the stage. 

"Your Artemis 2 astronauts are in the room with you ... I am not one of them," he said. 

Canada's government minister responsible for space, François-Philippe Champagne, hailed the 60 year partnership of NASA + CSA and Canada's contribution of the CanadArm3 for the Gateway station around the moon: "We're going to the moon!" he cheered.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson is now preparing to introduce the crew.

This post has been corrected to reflect François-Philippe Champagne's proper title.

NASA to announce Artemis 2 crew today

At long last, we're going to learn which astronauts will fly NASA's first crewed mission to the moon of the Artemis generation. 

Today, April 3, NASA and the Canadian Space Agency will announce the four astronauts who will fly on the Artemis 2 mission around the moon in 2024. That crew is expected to include one Canadian astronaut and three NASA astronaut s, but exactly who is yet to be revealed. 

NASA will announce the crew in an event at Ellington Field near the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT). Space.com staff writer Elizabeth Howell is on the scene at the event alongside contributor Robert Pearlman of collectSPACE.com. 

You'll be able to watch it live on Space.com , as well as at the top of this page at start time.

While we wait, here's a nifty trailer from NASA for today's Artemis 2 crew reveal.

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A Ticket to the Moon: An Out-of-this-World Journey

If you've got a few million dollars to spend, this is for you..

Naming a star, a crater, or even a planet after a loved one seems pretty romantic. After all, what makes a better gift that a rocky barren ditch that might one day trip up a future Mars rover ? Or a star that could one day be consumed by a hungry black hole ? So fleeting. Yet so popular. 

So let's take this idea of off-world gifts and really,  really run with it. Why buy a chunk of a Moon rock when you could us e that excessive expendable income to add to the extremely short list of human beings who have actually journeyed to the Moon? 

You’ve got a few options when it comes to gifting a ticket to the Moon. 

First, you could go with SpaceX . Last year, Elon Musk announced two private citizens will be flying around the Moon in a SpaceX rocket. More recently, he unveiled more details about one of the passengers: Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese billionaire entrepreneur and art collector. While neither Musk nor Maezawa would reveal the actual cost of the trip, Maezawa reportedly already paid a “significant deposit." In addition, Musk did hint that a roundtrip ticket would likely cost the same as a visit to the ISS. A 10-day trip will run you about $55 million, according to Axiom Space.   However, by many accounts this number can vary.   NASA pays Roscosmos just above $81 million for a round-trip to the Soyuz capsule, according to  The Verge .

Alternatively, there's  Space Adventures,  a company that charges around $150 million per seat for a trip around the Moon. During the journey, customers will see the far side of the Moon lit up, and watch an Earth rise, all from the comfort of a Russia spacecraft. This price includes 10 days docked on the ISS, acclimating to the new environment. Other perks included in the cost are training, and a personal cosmonaut guide.

While the cost might sound steep, think of the lunar tourism opportunities! You can take check out the site of the first human landing – AKA Tranquility Base, see Buzz Aldrin's foot print, U.S. flags, or even the golf balls astronaut Alan Shepard hit during an Apollo 14 moonwalk.

If only all gifts could be so out-of-this-world.

Want more gift ideas? Check out the full 2018 Futurism Gift Guide here!

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What will it cost to fly Virgin Galactic to space?

A short suborbital jaunt to the edge of space for most people requires having a lot of spare cash on hand, for now.

By Neil Vigdor and Kenneth Chang

• Published July 11, 2021 Updated Sept. 15, 2021

Not long after Richard Branson re-entered Earth’s atmosphere on Sunday, he and other employees of his Virgin Galactic venture boasted that the company would greatly expand opportunities for the general public to travel to space. For the moment, those otherworldly views and feelings of weightlessness will still be held in rarefied air.

A seat on one of the company’s spaceships originally cost $200,000 . The company later raised the price to $250,000 . It then stopped sales after a crash during a test flight in 2014. When the company resumes sales later this year, the price will probably rise again, said Michael Colglazier, Virgin Galactic’s chief executive.

“We’re here to make space more accessible to all,” Mr. Branson said on Sunday as he was presented with his astronaut wings after his milestone flight.

For a vast majority of Americans, the cost of such a trip is out of reach. In the future, Virgin Galactic and other spaceflight companies hope broadening opportunities to fly to space will bring down the cost of a ticket. But for now, primarily people with spare cash equivalent to the cost of some houses will be able to afford a few moments at the edge of space.

Nevertheless, the company estimated on Sunday that more than 600 people from some 60 countries had signed up for one of its flights. The first paying SpaceShipTwo passengers may begin flying in the next year, after the company completes two more test flights.

During Virgin Galactic’s livestream on Sunday, some space tourists-in-waiting spoke about how they were looking forward to taking the flights. They had been invited to watch Mr. Branson’s flight from Spaceport America in New Mexico. There was no discussion of the steep cost associated with space travel, which is not limited to Virgin Galactic.

An unnamed passenger paid $28 million to join the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos later this month when his rocket company, Blue Origin, is to launch its New Shepard rocket and capsule. The company has yet to announce the standard fare for a trip on its spacecraft when Mr. Bezos isn’t in the next seat.

While the price of a brief suborbital trip with Virgin Galactic or Blue Origin is expensive, trips even higher to orbit and beyond are downright, well, astronomical.

Three people paid $55 million each to Axiom Space in Houston to fly in SpaceX ’s Crew Dragon to the International Space Station as soon as early next year.

But not all trajectories to space will involve six or seven figures. On Sunday, Mr. Branson announced that Virgin Galactic would give away two tickets to space as part of a sweepstakes initiative with the charitable fund-raising platform Omaze.

No donation is required to win, according to Omaze, which said that a nonprofit organization, Space for Humanity, would seek to “democratize space and send citizen astronauts of diverse racial, economic and disciplinary backgrounds to space.”

“If you ever had a dream, now is the time to make it come true,” Mr. Branson said.

Neil Vigdor is a breaking news reporter. He previously covered Connecticut politics for The Hartford Courant. More about Neil Vigdor

Kenneth Chang has been at The Times since 2000, writing about physics, geology, chemistry, and the planets. Before becoming a science writer, he was a graduate student whose research involved the control of chaos. More about Kenneth Chang

What’s Up in Space and Astronomy

Keep track of things going on in our solar system and all around the universe..

Never miss an eclipse, a meteor shower, a rocket launch or any other 2024 event that’s out of this world with  our space and astronomy calendar .

Astronomers have discovered a black hole emitting energy in jets longer than the width of 140 Milky Way galaxies . The discovery raises new questions of how such black holes could affect the evolution and structure of the universe.

If you were to look up from Earth some 466 million years ago, you might have seen a gleaming ring made of asteroid debris , some scientists say.

Weeks before Europa Clipper was to be shipped for launch, scientists discovered a potentially fatal flaw that might doom the mission. Could engineers save it?

Is Pluto a planet? And what is a planet, anyway? Test your knowledge here .

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Apollo 11: How much did it cost to land astronauts on the moon?

By William Harwood

July 16, 2019 / 11:02 AM EDT / CBS News

In 1961, when President John F. Kennedy committed the nation to sending an astronaut to the moon "before this decade is out," the federal budget enjoyed a surplus and economists were calling for government spending to stimulate the economy.

Even so, the final price tag still boggles the mind. Between 1960 and 1973, NASA spent $28 billion developing the rockets, spacecraft and ground systems needed for what became the Apollo program. According to a recent analysis by the Planetary Society, that translates into an estimated $288.1 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars.

That's roughly equivalent to spending NASA's current annual budget on a single project and sustaining that effort for more than a decade.

Now, 50 years after the first Apollo moon landing , NASA is aggressively pursuing a Trump administration directive to return astronauts to the lunar surface in 2024. After five decades of technological progress, NASA will not be starting from scratch, and the total cost will be much lower than the price tag for Apollo.But it will not be cheap, and billions in additional funding will be required. 

The space agency has not revealed any detailed cost estimates, and it's not yet known whether Congress will go along. But a new Gallup poll shows most Americans continue to support space exploration.

"Solid majorities of Americans feel that NASA's budget is justifiable and that it should be maintained or increased," the polling organization wrote on its website. "The 1969 moon landing's upcoming anniversary may have elevated the historic achievement in Americans' minds as of late, as their recall of the first man on the moon is stronger than it was 20 years ago.

"Americans are also slightly more positive in their views of the space program's performance — which could be key to seeing NASA's continued funding as the agency works toward achieving its next feat."

The Apollo 11 anniversary prompted the Planetary Society to reassess how much the world's first moon program ultimately cost.

Figuring out the true cost of Apollo mission

Casey Dreier, author of the analysis and senior space policy adviser for the Planetary Society, said the analysis was conducted because the historical record is incomplete, difficult to unravel and, in some cases, simply incorrect .

Given the Trump administration's directive to send astronauts back to the moon by the end of 2024 in the newly named Artemis program , budget estimates for the Apollo program and the money actually spent provide valuable insights into hurdles the new moon program will face on Capitol Hill.

"How much was spent on Apollo, and when, is relevant as NASA has once again been directed to return humans to the moon," he writes on the Planetary Society website. "To properly evaluate the seriousness of this directive, it makes sense to compare its spending proposals to the one data point we have for a successful human lunar mission.

"How much money did it take to do it the first time? How was it spent? And, perhaps most importantly, when did the money show up?"

In reconstructing the cost of Apollo, Dreier evaluated official NASA budget submissions to Congress between 1961 and 1974, actual spending as reported by the space agency and countless supporting documents.

To adjust the results for inflation, he used NASA's New Start Index, designed specifically for aerospace projects, which is believed to provide more accurate insights compared to the Consumer Price Index, which focuses on household and consumer goods.

"The second method is to adjust the costs so that they occupy the same relative share of the nation's economy, or Gross Domestic Product (GDP), over time," Dreier wrote. "In other words, if Apollo occupied 2 percent of GDP in 1965, what is the equivalent of 2 percent of GDP in 2019?

"This approach answers the question: 'If the U.S. were to allocate resources to a space project to the same extent as it did for the lunar effort, how much would NASA have to spend today?' Think of this as a statement of economic priority."

The numbers, adjusted for inflation, are difficult to imagine in today's political climate.

In current-year dollars, the analysis shows, the Apollo command and service modules cost the equivalent of $39 billion to develop, the lunar module ran another $23.4 billion, and the giant Saturn family of rockets and the engines required to boost astronauts into Earth orbit and beyond cost nearly $100 billion to design, test and launch.

At the peak of Apollo program spending in 1966, Dreier says, NASA accounted for roughly 4.4% of the federal budget — 6.6% of discretionary spending — more than the Manhattan Project that developed the first atomic bomb.

In terms of relative GDP, that is, the spending required in 2019 to account for the same share of the economy as the Apollo project did in the 1960s, the Planetary Society calculates the equivalent of $702.3 billion would be required.

John Logsdon, a noted author and space historian, says even Kennedy had second thoughts about the enormous expenditures required to reach the moon.

In a meeting with NASA's administrator in September 1963, the president "worried that it's going to become a political liability for him for the '64 re-election," Logsdon said. "And he says popular support is waning, but we're kind of in mid journey and people will be glad we did it once it happens."

The day before Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, he gave a speech in San Antonio "where he says we've thrown our cap over the wall of space and we have no choice but to follow it," Logsdon said.

Had the president not been shot, "my judgment is that, indeed, he would not have turned off the clock and that he would have continued to support the program," Logsdon said. "If cooperation (with the Soviet Union) was possible, he would have sought cooperation. But if it wasn't, I think he would have moved ahead."

A different calculation today

Today's political and economic realities are vastly different than the ones Kennedy faced.

"The one thing that people forget about Apollo is that the federal budget was in surplus and economists were calling for government spending to stimulate the economy in 1961," Logsdon said. "So the kind of trillion dollars a month deficit spending we're doing wasn't there at all. And I think that ... may be the overriding constraint on doing anything like Apollo."

NASA's 2020 budget request, including $1.6 billion in supplemental funding to kick-start the Artemis moon program, comes to $22.6 billion. Of that total, $6.4 billion is directed to exploration, a 27% increase over 2019 levels.

Since 2005, NASA has spent by some estimates approximately $16 billion developing the re-purposed Orion crew capsule that will carry astronauts to and from the moon in the Artemis program and nearly $20 billion, according to at least one estimate, developing the huge Space Launch System (SLS) rocket needed to launch the lunar landing missions.

Both programs underwent extensive modifications, driving up costs, as program goals changed between the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations.

As it now stands, an initial unpiloted SLS test flight is planned for late next year or, more likely, 2021 with the first piloted flight of an Orion capsule expected in the 2022-23 timeframe. The first Artemis moon landing, using the third SLS booster and a yet-to-be designed lander, is planned for 2024.

"To date, the White House has proposed an additional $1.6 billion for Project Artemis, on top of the $5 billion spent annually on the Space Launch System, Orion, and related ground systems," Dreier writes.

"Compared to Apollo, this is a relatively modest investment. Looking forward, we should expect significant increases in spending associated with an accelerated lunar effort or adjust our expectations accordingly."

Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News.

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Where and How to See Earth’s ‘Second Moon’ This Fall

All products featured on Condé Nast Traveler are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

As astrotourism continues to take off, more travelers are planning trips on Earth based on night sky events—from solar eclipses and rare supermoons to the annual Perseid meteor shower . And while many of us mourn the early sunsets that fall brings, the extra hours of darkness offer an opportunity to tune into the celestial movements above.

This fall, the skies will hold a special treat for attentive space aficionados: Over the next two months, Earth will have a “second moon.” Beginning on September 29, just after 4 p.m. ET, an asteroid will enter Earth’s orbit and travel in a horseshoe-shaped path around the planet until it departs on November 25, according to the Spanish scientists who first reported the phenomenon earlier this month.

What is the second moon and what is it called?

Earth's second moon is actually an asteroid named ​​2024 PT5. It's considered a temporary “mini moon” because moons are scientifically defined as “naturally-formed bodies that orbit planets,” per NASA Science. But to us Earthlings, it won’t look like the Moon we know and love—because it won’t be visible to the naked eye.

In fact, the second moon is so mini (approximately the size of a school bus) and so distant (some 1.5 million kilometers away) that even a normal telescope won’t be able to capture it. To see it, you’ll need a telescope at least 30 inches in diameter paired with a CCD or CMOS digital detector, Carlos de la Fuente Marcos, astronomy professor at Universidad Complutense de Madrid and co-discoverer of 2024 PT5, tells Condé Nast Traveler.

“The object is too small and dim for typical amateur telescopes and binoculars,” he says. “However, the object is well within the brightness range of typical telescopes used by professional astronomers.”

The brightness of an object in space is what determines if we can see it from Earth—the brightest star visible to the naked eye has a magnitude of 6. “When it was discovered, 2024 PT5 had a magnitude of 17,” Marcos explains. “Now it has a magnitude close to 23. The Sun has a magnitude of -26.78 and the full Moon, -12.7. The magnitude scale is inverted, the dimmer the object, the more positive the magnitude is.”

How can you see the second moon?

For those of us who lack fancy telescopes, the best way to see the second moon before it departs Earth’s orbit is by heading over to a professional space observatory with public access. Here’s a handy list of US observatories categorized by state, located in universities, nature centers, museums, dark sky preserves , and more.

There is also a handful of hotels around the world that have fully-equipped observatories on site. Before booking, contact the property to confirm their technical abilities to capture the asteroid, but rest assured—at these spectacularly remote hideaways, even a single moon is bound to impress.

Hotels with space observatories

Four Seasons Resort Lanai

Owned by tech billionaire Larry Ellison, Four Seasons Resort Lanai has spared no expense in the technical department: the Kilo Hoku observatory has a powerful 1-meter telescope (about 40 inches), large enough to capture the elusive mini moon. The observatory also hosts immersive lessons about the role of astronomy in Hawaiian Indigenous culture, including the history of traditional wayfinding and Pacific voyaging.

Kosmos Stargazing Resort & Spa

Kosmos is located in Colorado’s San Luis Valley. Far removed from light pollution, the grounds are just a 15-minute drive away from Great Sand Dunes , an International Dark Sky Park. With 20 glass-dome villas equipped with their own personal telescopes and a Stargazing Center complete with a professional-grade 1-meter telescope and on-site planetarium, you’ll be able to view the night sky unlike ever before.

Snow King Mountain

Snow King Mountain in Jackson Hole, Wyoming is home to one of the United States’ only mountainside observatories and planetariums. With a 1-meter primary mirror Planewave telescope and 4K 360-degree planetarium, you’ll be able to see views of planets, galaxies, and asteroids, including Earth's second moon. Anyone can book time at this observatory, so you can stay at your choice of Jackson’s many hotels and Airbnbs . Combined with the city’s world-class skiing and endless outdoor activities at your fingertips, a trip here promises the best planet Earth has to offer day and night.

Primland, An Auberge Resort

This rural resort tucked away in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains has a fully-equipped observatory with Celestron CGE Pro 1400 and CPC 800 telescopes, which are both too small to view the mini moon. Instead, plan a stay around their special stargazing events; past programming has included photography sessions of Saturn at opposition and lunar eclipse viewing. A perennial reader-favorite, Primland, An Auberge Resort has a roster of outdoor activities during daylight hours as well, from hunting and fly fishing to horseback riding and hiking.

Explora Atacama Lodge

Located in the world’s driest desert in the north of Chile —known as the “Stargazing capital of the world”—the Explora Atacama Lodge is guaranteed to be an otherworldly stay. The domed observatory’s advanced optics telescope, the Meade 16” f/10 LX200R Advanced RD with a main mirror of 40 cm in diameter, is just too small to see the second moon. But with views of the Licancabur volcano and surrounding desert landscape, guests will feel like they’ve been transported to the face of the moon itself.

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