Back in the 1950s, a trip to the moon was originally envisioned as a private venture. The ensuing Cold War resulted in lunar trips being performed instead by vast government bureaucracies. Now the largest icon of the Cold War, the Soviet SS-18 Satan ICBM, is about to make a commercial trip to the moon possible after all.
New Scientist reports that In October 2003, a California company named TransOrbital plans to launch a privately funded lunar mission. The plan is to orbit the moon for 90 days while sending pictures back to Earth, then crash land a survivable capsule full of business cards ($2500 each) and personal signatures (at only $16.95 a pop). It may even be manned – sort of, they’ll consider cremated remains at $2500 per gram. The American Indians think such a contamination of a spiritual icon like the Moon with dead bodies is blasphemy. Too late, a vast government bureaucracy has already contaminated the Moon with cremated remains – the only man still on the Moon. For the environmentally conscious among you who don’t want to be a lunar litterbug, there’s always Keo…