Moon to host first tourists by 2017

The US-based space tourism company Space Adventures announced on Wednesday that the moon will welcome its first tourists as early as 2017.
"Two brave folks have agreed to spend a fortune on the tickets," Space Adventures' head Tom Shelley said, the Voice of Russia reported.
"The company did not disclose the customers' names. They will pay USD 150 mln each for a one-day tour around the ISS on board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft monitored by professional cosmonauts," the report said.
"The package also includes training in the Mission Control Center in Russia's Star City, where all cosmonauts are preparing for their missions and a 17-day flight to the moon and back. This is a unique chance to join the team of 18 moon-conquerors (all of whom male Apollo astronauts) who landed on the moon as part of six missions from July 1969 to December 1972," it added.
The report further noted that Space Adventures has sold tickets to eight so-called space tourists since 2001 but those were trips from orbiting the earth to docking with the International Space Station.
"Space Adventures describes the mission as the good old deep space exploration, as no human has left low earth orbit since the Apollo 17 mission of 1972, which was NASA's final flight to the moon," it said.
"Mankind can only progress to become a space faring race by taking the small steps necessary to reduce the costs of access to space. This mission will be one of those small, but very significant steps," Space Adventures wrote on its website.
Space Adventures is currently arranging a flight for British singer Sarah Brightman that is scheduled for 2015.