You’ve heard the song. Frank Sinatra made it sound effortless, swinging through the stars like it was a casual Tuesday night at a jazz club. But if you actually try to go out and buy fly me to the moon tickets right now, you’re going to hit a wall made of physics, international law, and a price tag that would make a billionaire blink.
Space is hard. It’s also incredibly expensive.
Most people think we’re in the "Golden Age" of space travel because they see Elon Musk’s Starship prototypes exploding—and then eventually landing—on a regular basis in South Texas. They see Jeff Bezos floating for four minutes in a suborbital capsule. They see Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic taking celebrities to the edge of the atmosphere. But there is a massive, yawning chasm between "touching the edge of space" and actually reaching the lunar surface.
Honestly, the reality of commercial lunar travel is a mess of delayed timelines and shifting mission profiles.
The Reality of Commercial Lunar Missions
When you search for fly me to the moon tickets, you aren't looking for a flight to the International Space Station (ISS). You’re looking for a Cislunar mission. This is a journey that takes you out of Earth's orbit, across 238,000 miles of void, and either into lunar orbit or down to the dusty surface itself.
Right now, there is exactly one company that has come close to selling something resembling a passenger ticket for a private lunar loop: SpaceX.
Remember Yusaku Maezawa? The Japanese billionaire art collector? He basically cornered the market on the first private lunar voyage back in 2018. It was called the "dearMoon" project. He bought out the entire flight on SpaceX’s Starship. He wanted to take artists with him. He wanted to turn the moon into a giant cultural moment.
But then, in mid-2024, the project was abruptly canceled.
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Why? Because space development moves at a snail’s pace compared to the hype cycles of Silicon Valley. Maezawa cited the uncertainty of the Starship development timeline. He didn't want to keep his crew in limbo forever. This cancellation was a massive reality check for anyone thinking they could just hop on a website and book a seat for 2026. If a billionaire who already paid a massive deposit can't get his flight off the ground, what hope does the rest of the world have?
What Does a Ticket Actually Cost?
If you have to ask, you definitely can't afford it. That’s the boring answer. The more interesting answer is that we don't actually know the "retail" price because there isn't a retail market yet.
We can extrapolate, though.
A seat on a SpaceX Crew Dragon mission to the ISS—which is only about 250 miles up—costs roughly $55 million. That’s just for low Earth orbit (LEO). To go to the moon, you need a much larger ship, more fuel, more life support, and a heat shield capable of handling a re-entry speed of about 25,000 miles per hour.
NASA’s Artemis program, which is the government's effort to put boots back on the moon, is costing billions per launch. For a private citizen to buy fly me to the moon tickets, they would likely need to shell out somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 million to $200 million per seat. That’s assuming the rocket is reusable. If it’s an expendable rocket? Forget about it. The price goes into the stratosphere.
The Companies Actually Trying (and Failing) to Get You There
SpaceX is the obvious leader here. Their Starship is the only vehicle currently under development with the internal volume to make a lunar trip feel like a journey rather than a stay in a pressurized coffin. Starship is huge. It’s designed to carry 100 people to Mars, so a handful of people going to the moon would have plenty of room to move around.
But they aren't the only ones.
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- Blue Origin: Jeff Bezos’s company is working on the Blue Moon lander. However, their primary focus is currently on NASA contracts. They want to be the delivery service for the lunar base. They haven't started taking "tourist" deposits for the moon yet.
- Space Adventures: This is a boutique firm that specializes in brokering space flights. They were the ones who sent Dennis Tito to the ISS back in 2001. For years, they’ve had a "Circumlunar Mission" listed on their site. They’ve talked about using Russian Soyuz technology to slingshot two tourists around the moon. It’s never happened. Geopolitics and technical hurdles keep pushing it back.
- Axiom Space: They are building a private space station, but they’ve expressed interest in lunar orbits. Again, no active ticket sales.
The truth is, if you see a website offering "Moon Flight Pre-orders" for $9.99, it’s a scam. Or they’re selling you a piece of paper that says you own an acre of lunar land, which is legally meaningless under the Outer Space Treaty of 1967.
The Physical Toll of the Trip
Let’s say you find the money. You find a seat. You’re ready.
You aren't just sitting in a chair for a few days. A trip to the moon takes about three days each way. During that time, you are being pelted by cosmic radiation. Once you leave the Earth’s protective Van Allen belts, you are in a high-radiation environment.
Private companies have to figure out how to shield passengers without making the ship too heavy to lift. Then there’s the bone density loss, the muscle atrophy, and the "space adaptation syndrome"—which is a fancy way of saying you’ll probably vomit for the first 48 hours because your inner ear doesn't know which way is up.
It is not a luxury cruise. It is an expedition.
Why the Tech Isn't Ready Yet
We went to the moon in 1969. Why is it so hard now?
Because the Apollo missions were a government-funded sprint where "safety" was a relative term and "cost" was irrelevant. To sell fly me to the moon tickets to the public, the rockets have to be safe. Like, airplane safe. Or at least close to it.
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The Saturn V rocket was a masterpiece, but it wasn't reusable. Every time they went to the moon, they threw away a billion-dollar machine. You can't build a tourism industry on disposable hardware. You need the Starship model—land it, refuel it, and fly it again. We aren't there yet. We’re still learning how to catch a 20-story booster with giant mechanical "chopsticks."
The Legal and Ethical Nightmare
Who regulates a flight to the moon? The FAA handles launches from U.S. soil, but once you’re in deep space, it’s a bit of a Wild West. If a private passenger dies on a lunar loop, who is responsible? What happens if a private ship accidentally crashes into a historic site like Tranquility Base?
There are also serious ethical concerns. Is it right for the ultra-wealthy to burn thousands of tons of methane and oxygen for a vacation while the Earth faces a climate crisis? These are the questions that make "fly me to the moon tickets" a PR minefield for companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin.
Actionable Steps for the Aspiring Space Traveler
If you are genuinely serious about one day seeing the lunar far side with your own eyes, you shouldn't be looking for a ticket booth. You should be looking at the infrastructure.
Monitor the Artemis Milestones
The success of NASA’s Artemis II and III missions will dictate the private market. If NASA can't get humans back to the moon safely by the late 2020s, no private company will be doing it for tourists. Watch for the Orion capsule’s performance and the development of the Lunar Gateway.
Invest in the "Space Economy" Instead of a Ticket
Unless you have a nine-figure net worth, your best bet is to participate in the industry. Look into companies involved in satellite communication, rocket propulsion, and space-grade materials. The "tickets" of the future are being paid for by the profits of today's satellite launches.
Look at Suborbital First
If you want to experience weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin’s New Shepard are your "entry-level" options. These tickets cost between $450,000 and $1,250,000. It’s a fraction of a lunar trip, and the waitlist is actually moving.
Check the SpaceX Manifests
SpaceX occasionally announces "charter" flights. While the dearMoon mission is dead, billionaire Jared Isaacman (the guy behind the Polaris Dawn mission) is still pushing the envelope of what private citizens can do in space. He’s the one to watch. If a civilian lunar mission happens, his name—or someone in his orbit—will likely be attached to it.
The dream of the moon hasn't died; it’s just being rebuilt on more sustainable, albeit slower, foundations. We’ve moved past the era of "can we do it?" and into the much harder era of "can we make it a business?" Until the answer to that is a definitive yes, those moon tickets will remain the rarest items in the solar system.