After travelling hundreds of thousands of miles from Earth, the Artemis II crew began their four-day descent back home earlier this week.
It was a landmark adventure for space travel and NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, became the first crew to complete a flyby of the Moon in half a century.
But as four humans return to Earth after a fleeting visit past the huge celestial body, will it ever be possible to book a four-star hotel with starry views on the Moon?
A holiday in space might be closer than you think.
Back in 2021, plans for the Voyager Station hotel were revealed and the Orbital Assembly Corporation (OAC) had big ambitions to open the resort as early as 2027.
There have been little updates since, but at the time it was said the infrastructure would be built in orbit around Earth.
Instead of sitting directly on the Moon, plans for the space station hotel detailed how it would be a large circle and rotate to generate artificial gravity that would be set at a similar level to the gravity found on the surface of the Moon.
It was set to be kitted out with many of the facilities holidaymakers might expect from a large resort or a cruise ship – including themed restaurants, a health spa and a cinema.
Other plans featured a series of pods attached to the outside of the rotating ring and some of these pods could be sold to the likes of NASA and ESA for space research.
But the Voyager Station isn’t the only possible space tourism contender. An American start-up – Galactic Resource Utilization (GRU) Space – plans to build a resort on the Moon.
Back in January, the company was asking hopeful space tourists to pay a £750,000 deposit to secure a five-night stay, which may end up costing more than £7.5million in total.
The hotel could be ready to receive guests in just six years and GRU Space founder Skyler Chan believes the hotel will allow humans to colonise the Moon, and eventually Mars.
‘Humanity’s transition to a space-faring species is not a question of if, but when,’ he said.
‘We live during an inflection point where we can actually become interplanetary before we die. If we succeed, billions of human lives will be born on the Moon and Mars and be able to experience the beauty of lunar and martian life.’Plans for the hotel include bringing an inflatable residence to the Moon in 2032 that will have enough room for four guests.
It will be equipped with air recycling and oxygen generation, water recycling, temperature control, emergency escape system and radiation shelter for solar storms.
Designed to operate for 10 years, the firm intends to offer guests experiences such as Moonwalking, rover driving – and even rounds of low-gravity golf.
Cuisine at the hotel won’t be the same delicious quality you might expect at a five-star resort on Earth however. Guests will have to tuck into freeze-dried food like astronauts would.
Visitors could stay for five Earth nights – the equivalent to only a fraction of a lunar day on the Moon.
The project is backed by investors who also invested in Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Chan revealed he thought Space Z or Blue Origin would bring people to the hotel.
Another company – Axiom Space – also hopes to build a commercial space station as early as 2028, according to the New York Post.
The firm is founded by billionaire Kam Ghaffarian who’s representatives told the publication: ‘It will enable the commercialization of space and the development of a global space economy.’
In another move for space tourism, SpaceX previously announced plans to launch a tourist around the Moon.
The trip would use the company’s Big F*****g Rocket (BFR), a massive launch vehicle that is being designed to carry people into deep space.
‘SpaceX has signed the world’s first private passenger to fly around the Moon aboard our BFR launch vehicle – an important step toward enabling access for everyday people who dream of traveling to space,’ the company said on X at the time.
Although the journey hasn’t quite happened yet, SpaceX’s website outlines plans to launch Starship cargo flights to the Moon in 2028.