Firm offers moon missions for $1.5bn

Golden Spike president says he is looking at countries such as South Africa, South Korea and Japan for two-person trips
The moon
Nasa’s last trip to the moon was 40 years ago. Photograph: Arno Balzarini/EPA

A team of former Nasa executives is launching a private venture to send people to the moon.

For $1.5bn (£940m), the newly formed Golden Spike is offering countries a two-person trip either for research or national prestige.

Nasa's last trip to the moon was 40 years ago, and since the space race ended there has been only sporadic interest in another visit. Barack Obama cancelled Nasa's planned return, saying America had already been there.

But Golden Spike's president, Alan Stern, said the firm had talked to other countries that had shown interest in going. He said he was looking at countries such as South Africa, South Korea and Japan.

"It's not about being first. It's about joining the club," said Stern, a former Nasa associate administrator. "We're kind of cleaning up what Nasa did in the 1960s. We're going to make a commodity of it in the 2020s."

Stern said he was aiming for a first launch before the end of the decade, and then up to 15 or 20 launches in total.

Dozens of private space companies have started up recently. The Harvard astronomer Jonathan McDowell, who tracks launches worldwide, said few if any would make it.

Many hope to follow the success of Space X, which has ferried cargo to the International Space Station for Nasa. But McDowell said more than 90% of new ventures would fail before anything was built.

"This is unlikely to be the one that will pan out," he said, adding that the price tag seemed a bit steep.

Golden Spike is full of space veterans; American University's space policy professor Howard McCurdy called them "heavy hitters" in the field.

The board chairman is the Apollo-era flight director Gerry Griffin, who once headed the Johnson Space Centre. Advisers include space shuttle veterans, Hollywood directors, the former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the former UN ambassador Bill Richardson and the engineer-author Homer Hickam.

Stern said the company would buy existing rockets and capsules, and only needed to develop new spacesuits and a lunar lander.