NEWS FROM THE FUTURE | SpaceX launches Moon taxi

It's fun to go away for a summer holiday, and what better, more exotic place than the moon? That's assuming you can afford the fare.

For the well-heeled, it has become possible to take that once-in-a-lifetime trip to the moon, and back, courtesy of SpaceX. SpaceX has announced it is opening bookings for round-trips to the moon, including landing on the surface and a short moon walk.

After the successful powered landing of the Falcon 9 rocket in 2015, SpaceX was quick to ramp up its capabilities for reusable space craft. Within months the "grocery truck" cargo ship sent to the International Space Station (ISS) was returning under its own steam (powerful thrusters) to bring back the garbage.

Watching a space capsule gracefully return to the launch pad for another trip looked like science fiction at first, but it soon became routine, even boring. Next on the list was ferrying astronauts to the ISS and back. Then came space tourists, bidding for the few available places to visit the ISS.

The business of space tourism rocketed upwards with the construction of the "Palace of the Sky", an orbiting hotel built by China. Adventurous travellers and wealthy newlyweds have kept occupancy at 100%. It's so easy to get there with SpaceX.

Now SpaceX has taken another quantum leap into the future. Dubbed the Moon Taxi, its latest rocket features four stages, including the lander, which also brings you safely back to Earth. /First published in Mindbullets April 15 2015.

Dateline: June 12 2029

For a long time, international astronauts and would-be space tourists had only one destination available in orbit, the International Space Station, or ISS. Now there's another one, China's Heavenly Palace.

Interest in space travel surged in the early 2020s, when SpaceX successfully delivered astronauts to the ISS using its reusable rockets, and promises of private flips to orbit and trips around the moon filled the Twittersphere. Now that private companies were in the human space flight business, surely almost any dream could be fulfilled.

As the second biggest gorilla on the global stage, China always had ambitions to be top-ranked, and in space too. With the successful development of itsLong March 5B heavy-lift rocket, plans for a serious Chinese space station were accelerated and the first module, called Tianhe 1, placed into orbit in 2021.

With typical speed, Tiangong (Heavenly Palace) was ready for its first astronaut sojourn within three years. As China's economy and global influence boomed on Earth, so did its presence in space, and the addition of expansion modules allows Tiangong to house eight people for up to six months. In keeping with China's strengthening international links, astronauts from other space agencies were given access.

Now China has indicated it is willing to consider space tourists visiting its palace in the sky. Already equipped with international docking gates, the space station could be your out-of-this-world weekend getaway, if you can afford the space fare. SpaceX is happy to provide the ride. /First published in Mindbullets June 10 2020.