Moon Express: $10,000-Worth Lunar Flights To Be Offered By 2026

Are you willing to spend more than $10,000 on flights to the Moon? A company aims to bring tourists to the Moon in the next 10 years.

The company, dubbed as Moon Express Inc. (MoonEx), was founded by billionaire and philanthropist Naveen Jain. Founded in 2010, the company has become the only private enterprise to be granted permission to bring tourists beyond the Earth's orbit and land on the Moon. The company plans to team up with Elon Musk's SpaceX for its lunar mission.

Moon Express gained the permission of the U.S. government to explore the Moon for resources. It received the green light to pursue its 2017 lunar mission following in-depth consultations with various legs of the government including NASA and the White House. The company plans a mission to take a robotic rover to the Moon in 2017.

"The Moon Express 2017 mission approval is a landmark decision by the U.S. government and a pathfinder for private sector commercial missions beyond the Earth's orbit," said Bob Richards, company's CEO, said in a press release by Moon Express.

"We are now free to set sail as explorers to Earth's eighth continent, the Moon, seeking new knowledge and resources to expand Earth's economic sphere for the benefit of all humanity," he added.

According to The Telegraph, aside from changing the travel habits in the future, the mission could lay the groundwork for colonization of the Moon. This could also provide commercial space travel experiences to many individuals where they could spend holidays on the Moon within a decade.

The predictions of the company show that it will cost about $10,000 to buy passage to the Moon and back to Earth.

"It's very complimentary as a matter of fact ... Elon will build the rocket and we do the rover. Essentially, he lays the cables and we do the last mile," Naveen Jain told CNBC.

Despite having the Moon as a preliminary mission, Naveen Jain also plans to be able to go and explore Mars.

"Mars is absolutely the right place to be ultimately. But (the) moon is the first training ground and the first stepping stone. At the end of the day, we would rather me a lunatic three days away than be a Martian six months away," Naveen Jain added.