Brit firm offers trips to the Moon... for £100million

Testing ... Sun girl Miranda Prynne tries out firm's space module

DAN JONES

By MIRANDA PRYNNE

Published: 20th June 2012

A BRITISH company has unveiled plans to take humans to the Moon for the first time since 1972.

Isle of Man-based Excalibur Almaz will blast passengers into lunar orbit for a £100million “fare”.

The first voyages — aboard Russian shuttles once used to spy on the West — could launch in 2015.

Until now space tourists have travelled only to the International Space Station and back.

Excalibur has bought and recycled four re-entry capsules and two space stations from Russian firm NPO Mashinostroyenia.

Customers will first dock with one of the space stations in low-Earth orbit. From there they will be blasted into the Moon’s orbit, taking them 234,000 miles from home. The flights, which could last eight months, will then continue into space, taking them further from Earth than achieved before. Chief executive Art Dula said yesterday: “The EA fleet has flown to space several times and will undertake many more missions. It contains vessels of a design that’s spent thousands of hours in space.

“This, my fellow adventurers, is scientific fact, not fiction.”

Lift-off ... flights could last eight months

Art claims the company, whose spacecraft each carry three people, needs only 29 passengers to succeed financially.

The firm — whose Isle of Man home is rated the world’s fifth most-likely place to man the next mission to the Moon — yesterday drew crowds by displaying one of its vessels in Westminster, London.

One small step for Isle of Man ... how spacecraft will look

Art said his voyages were very different to trips offered by space flight rivals, whose craft will provide a few minutes’ weightlessness at just 60 miles up.

He added: “Our passengers will not be tourists but private expedition members on expeditions that will go further than any man has ever gone in the past