We recently finished watching a new TV show called Hello Tomorrow, which depicts a retro-style future with robots delivering food, tire-less cars and TV phone calls. If you grew up watching The Jetsons, you will know what I’m talking about. But living in space isn’t the main premise of the show, it is selling timeshares on the moon. Charming sales agents go around small towns, convincing people to do away with their life savings with the promise that they could start fresh on the moon.
The show is cleverly done (I won’t spoil the ending if you are so inclined to watch it yourself) as it taps into the ever-present dissatisfaction people feel with their current lives and the ever-gullible hope that promises us greener pastures elsewhere.
I, myself, wouldn’t pay a penny to book a flight to the moon, but the show did make me curious. How close are we to this future? Join us this week in The Global Tiller as we look into moon tourism. What does it look like now and what could it potentially become?
Unless you’re one of those who believe NASA staged the moon landing, humanity’s first step on the lunar surface in 1969 is well recorded, making Neil Armstrong the first man to set foot on the moon. Between then and 1972, a total of 12 men have walked on the moon — all of them American. This was the end of the space race and the US had won. In the last 50 years since then, no one else has been to the moon mainly because the cost is too high and politics no longer necessitated it. Other countries were too far behind so the moon was left alone.
However, this is no longer the case. Space exploration has renewed fervour ever since private entities and other countries started dreaming lunar, and it may just so happen that within our lifetime, booking a flight to outer space could be as easy as booking a plane ticket to Europe.
Former NASA engineer Chris Lewicki, whose company gravityLab tests how humans would function off planet, sees two kinds of space tourism emerging: first, an adventure kind in which ordinary people will go to the moon but in as much comfort as astronauts, meaning cramped quarters, limited supplies and bad food; or the second kind, a more luxurious flight that let’s the ultra rich get close-up views of the moon from the comforts of space stations.
When it comes to the first scenario, the technology is on its way. Some companies have been able to manufacture solar cells from moon dust, which would give us air to breathe and silicon to convert into energy. As soon as these companies make the enormous leap of accomplishing the same thing on the lunar surface, humans will be able to build outposts on the Moon and the first adventure tour on the moon will soon follow.
As for space visits for the ultra rich, that future is already here. Companies, like Axiom Space, SpaceX and Blue Origin, already fly tourists to the International Space Station for anywhere between $200,000 and $55 million. There are others, such as Virgin Galactic, Roscosmos and Space Perspective, who also offer joyrides to the edge of space and back for somewhere between $250,000 and $500,000.
But these tour packages are only taking you far enough to catch a glimpse of the blue marble from afar. How close are we to the moon? Well, it hasn’t happened yet but it may happen soon. Dennis Tito — the world’s first space tourist — and his wife, Akiko, have signed up with SpaceX to go around the moon on the Starship rocket. The actual mission may be some years away but, when it happens, this couple will be the first tourists with front row seats of the moon.
If you aren’t put off by the price tag, the profiles of the people lining up for a lunar vacation are enough to repel you. When rich people gain untaxed, outrageous wealth, of course they’ll look for equally outrageous spending sprees. So why can’t we regulate who goes into space and for what purpose?
The problem is that we still don’t know who owns space. Currently, all space exploration is governed by the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 that, among other things, mandates that the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind. It is not subject to any claim of sovereignty, and the Moon and other celestial bodies shall only be used exclusively for peace.
So far, all countries have abided by the provisions of this treaty. That is until private companies entered the domain. Since corporate interest in space exploration began, the US government especially, has made moves to get ahead. It passed the Space Act of 2015 which explicitly allows US citizens and industries to "engage in the commercial exploration and exploitation of space resources" including water and minerals. It also significantly reduces the oversight of regulatory bodies. Since an overwhelming number of companies offering private space tourism are US based, this law has implications for the rest of the world.
If we continue on this path of unchecked space development, with profits and corporate interests at its heart, will we also end up in the world of Hello Tomorrow in which we are so eager to leave the hell we created on earth that we, too, will dig into our savings to book a seat on a rocket ship? Or will we hold on stronger to our initial commitment to keep space and the moon for all mankind and, most importantly, for peace?
Until next time, take care and stay safe!
Hira - Editor - The Global Tiller
Dig Deeper
How far away are we from receiving calls from salespersons selling us lucrative plots on the moon? A new series, Hello Tomorrow, imagines a retro futuristic world in which a charismatic salesman leads a team of fellow sales associates determined to revitalise their customers’ lives by hawking timeshares on the moon.
…and now what?
The topic of space always brings a lot of debates and conversations: on wealth, on colonisation, on progress, or simply, why are we doing all this. Sometimes it may seem completely useless to even try, given its uniqueness and the lengths to which we have to go to reach somewhere other than Earth. Others will tell you that it has brought so many evolutions to our daily life that it was worth a try.
But there is more to this conversation than just the immediate cost-benefit analysis. This is just the first stage of the rocket.
One can remember the words of US President John F. Kennedy when he decided to launch this project to go to the moon: “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” And it is true that mankind has an innate sense of challenging itself. We have explored and settled in every corner of the planet, even the least welcoming ones, because we always try.
Now some would say that trying to leave your home planet may be a step too far. They may be right, I don’t know. But the thing is, it’s already happening, so should we let it happen and not care about it, or should we go deeper and find ways for everyone to make the most of it?
As Kennedy also said, “Man and his quest for knowledge and progress is determined and cannot be deterred.” So if this is an unstoppable momentum, should we do something about it?
My initial answer would be, yes. We have enough experience from so many previous human ventures that we know already what could go wrong: ego, greed, patriotism, militarism and all the other -isms you can think of. So it wouldn’t be so hard to foresee the potential deviations of space exploration and its tendency towards privatisation to understand that we need to regulate it more.
But there is more to this conversation, there’s another stage to this rocket. If the discussion on space exploration and tourism is so heated, it’s probably because it asks more questions about our very earthly minds more than about what’s out there.
When he stepped on the moon for the first time, Neil Armstrong had these now legendary words: “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” And then he went on to plant the American flag. So which mankind was he talking about?
When Elon Musk chose his first “civilian crew” to fly out on his dragon capsule, while professing his “love for humanity,” he only selected American citizens.
When we count the number of humans who have stepped foot on the moon, why did we count only men?
As we are looking at the stars, we keep our mind framed by old ideas, of the likes that existed way back when men didn’t know about all the lands existing, all the cultures spread around the globe, all the many discoveries that they had yet to understand. Back then you relied on what you knew, on what seemed familiar.
But today we’re stepping literally out of our comfort zones, yet we still struggle to find a better way to welcome the challenge, to frame it, to make it a way to transcend our natural, social and psychological barriers in a way that finally defeats many planetary issues. As we’re looking way beyond what our natural “pay grade” could allow, we are still thinking in a very limited way. We talk about mankind but cheer for our own flag.
So, as it seems that the world is getting more and more involved into this amazing adventure of discovering other planets, visiting other spaces (in every sense of the word), wouldn’t it be necessary not only to regulate greed but also to regulate close-mindedness?
Isn’t it time to review our economic models, our social models and to use the insane creativity of human beings to promote new ideas, new models: ones that can motivate us to do it for everyone and not for one flag.
So, as we are all looking at those new tourists getting their way into the sky, let’s make sure that this new way of traveling, this new tourism, this new destination is a way for all of us to “not seeking landscapes but having new eyes,” as Marcel Proust used to say, instead of making it like any other tourism industry: “an industry that moves people who would be better home to a place that would be better without them,” as Jean Mistler puts it.
It’s a new space for us to design, a new space to welcome ourselves, a space that is up to us to make anew and better.
Philippe - Founder & CEO - Pacific Ventury