![Future luinar colony [image courtesy of NASA wikimedia commons]](https://staticr1.blastingcdn.com/media/photogallery/2017/11/12/660x290/b_502x220x82/future-luinar-colony-image-courtesy-of-nasa-wikimedia-commons_1685969.jpg "Future luinar colony [image courtesy of NASA wikimedia commons]")
Andy Weir’s second space novel, “Artemis,” is coming out and will in short order be a major motion picture, just like his first novel, “The Martian.” One of the fascinating aspects of the background of the novel is that it is set in a resort town on the moon, called like the novel “Artemis.” Business Insider notes that by the 2080s, enough people are willing to shell out $70,000 for a lunar vacation to justify building and maintaining such a city. Other moon based industries exist, which triggers part of the plot of the novel but we can just concentrate on what is involved in a lunar vacation for this piece.
What is entailed in going to the moon on vacation?
The Business Insider piece suggests that 70 years or so hence, spacecraft capable of taking hundreds of people or the equivalent of cargo are regularly plying between the Earth and moon. The estimate for a round trip to the moon is about $45,000, with the rest paying for a two-week stay on the moon.
“Artemis” has a number of amenities for people on holiday that are common to all resorts, including great bars and restaurants. One suspects that the novelty of one-sixth gravity would be an attraction – especially for honeymooners.
Artemis the resort town has a couple of tours that one can only access on the moon, as mentioned in Weir’s novel. Tourists can board a bus and travel across the Lunar Surface to visit one or more of the Apollo landing sites, viewing them from visitors’ centers placed strategically so as not to disturb the places where people like Armstrong, Cernan, and Conrad made history over a century before.
The other tour offered by Artemis the resort town is a guided hike over the lunar surface under the watchful eye of trained guides. You too can put on a space suit and do a real live moonwalk as your guide points out interesting features. In Weir’s imagined future, these excursions take place just outside of the resort, but one can imagine hopping one of those buses and taking a trip to one of the more picturesque parts of the moon, such as an impact craters such as Tycho.
Would you go to the moon for $70,000?
If you happen to be rich, say a corporate executive or a successful businessperson, $70,000 to go to the moon may not be a big deal. A middle-class person would have to spend years saving for such a trip or perhaps take out a second mortgage on his or her home. Still, what price a once in a lifetime trip? Someone is going to rake in a lot of money making such vacations happen.
