WASHINGTON (AP) — Attention wealthy nations and billionaires: A
team of former NASA executives
will fly you to the moon in an out-of-this-world commercial venture combining
the wizardry of Apollo and the marketing of Apple.

For a mere $1.5 billion, the business is offering countries the chance to
send two people to the moon and back, either for research or national prestige.
And if you are an individual with that kind of money to spare, you too can go
the moon for a couple days.

Some space experts, though, are skeptical of the firm's financial ability to
get to the moon. The venture called Golden Spike Co. was announced Thursday.

Dozens of private space companies have started up recently, but few if any
will make it — just like in other fields — said Harvard astronomer Jonathan
McDowell, who tracks launches worldwide.

"This is unlikely to be the one that will pan out," McDowell said.

NASA's last trip to the moon
launched 40 years ago Friday. The United States is the only country that has
landed people there, beating the Soviet Union in a space race to the moon that
transfixed the world. But once the race ended, there has been only sporadic
interest in the moon.

President Barack Obama
cancelled NASA's planned return
to the moon, saying America had already been there. On Wednesday, a National
Academy of Sciences said the nation's space agency has no clear goal or
direction for future human exploration.

But the ex-NASA officials behind Golden Spike do. It's that old moon again.

The firm has talked to other countries, which are showing interest, said
former NASA associate
administrator Alan Stern, Golden
Spike's president. Stern said he's looking at countries like South
Africa, South Korea, and Japan. One very rich individual — he won't give a name
— has also been talking with them, but the company's main market is foreign
nations, he said.

"It's not about being first. It's about joining the club," Stern said. "We're
kind of cleaning up what NASA
did in the 1960s. We're going to make a commodity of it in the 2020s."

The selling point: "the sex appeal of flying your own astronauts," Stern
said.

Many countries did pony up millions of dollars to fly their astronauts on the
Russian space station Mir and American space shuttles in the 1990s, but a
billion dollar price tag seems a bit steep, Harvard's McDowell said.

NASA chief spokesman David
Weaver said the new company "is further evidence of the timeliness and wisdom of
the Obama administration's overall space policy" which tries to foster commercial space
companies.

Getting to the moon would involve several steps: Two astronauts would launch
to Earth orbit, connect with another engine that would send them to lunar orbit.
Around the moon, the crew would link up with a lunar orbiter and take a moon
landing ship down to the surface.

The company will buy existing rockets and capsules for the launches, Stern
said, only needing to develop new spacesuits and a lunar lander.

Stern said he's aiming for a first launch before the end of the decade and
then up 15 or 20 launches total. Just getting to the first launch will cost the
company between $7 billion and $8 billion, he said.

Besides the ticket price, Stern said there are other revenue sources, such as
NASCAR-like advertising, football stadium-like naming rights, and Olympic style
video rights.

It may be technically feasible, but it's harder to see how it is financially
doable, said former NASA
associate administrator Scott Pace, space policy director at George Washington
University. Just dealing with the issue of risk and the required test launches
is inordinately expensive, he said.

Company board chairman Gerry Griffin, an Apollo flight director who once
headed the Johnson Space Center, said that's a correct assessment: "I don't
think there's any technological stumble here. It's going to be financial."

The company is full of space veterans; American University space policy
professor Howard McCurdy called them "heavy hitters" in the field. Advisers
include space shuttle veterans, Hollywood directors, former House Speaker Newt
Gingrich, former U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson and engineer-author Homer
Hickam.