{"id":19038,"date":"2017-03-10T22:29:32","date_gmt":"2017-03-10T14:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/round-the-moon-trip-intrigues-billionaire-spaceflier-charles-simonyi-but-he-wont-go\/"},"modified":"2017-03-10T22:29:32","modified_gmt":"2017-03-10T14:29:32","slug":"round-the-moon-trip-intrigues-billionaire-spaceflier-charles-simonyi-but-he-wont-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/round-the-moon-trip-intrigues-billionaire-spaceflier-charles-simonyi-but-he-wont-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Round-the-moon trip intrigues billionaire spaceflier Charles Simonyi, but he won\u2019t go"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_316479\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-316479\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-316479\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/20170309_Paul_Allen_UW_CSE_32-630x420.jpg\" alt=\"Charles Simonyi\" width=\"630\" height=\"420\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/20170309_Paul_Allen_UW_CSE_32-630x420.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/20170309_Paul_Allen_UW_CSE_32-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/20170309_Paul_Allen_UW_CSE_32-1240x826.jpg 1240w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/20170309_Paul_Allen_UW_CSE_32.jpg 1730w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-316479\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Software billionaire Charles Simonyi chats with GeekWire\u2019s Alan Boyle at a 50th-anniversary celebration for the University of Washington\u2019s computer science and engineering program. (GeekWire Photo \/ Kevin Lisota)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Charles Simonyi, the billionaire software executive who\u2019s flown to space&nbsp;twice, says he doesn\u2019t know who\u2019s on SpaceX\u2019s passenger list for a flight beyond the moon and back. But he knows at least one potential customer who\u2019s not on it: himself.<\/p>\n<p>Simonyi might seem to be in the sweet spot for the space adventure, which SpaceX billionaire founder Elon Musk says is in the works for as early as 2018.<\/p>\n<p>The Hungarian-born computer scientist bought not just one, but two multimillion-dollar trips to the International Space Station, in 2007 and 2009. The Soyuz capsule he rode in 2009 is on display in the Charles Simonyi Space Gallery at Seattle\u2019s Museum of Flight. And thanks in part to his role as the architect for Microsoft Word, his&nbsp;estimated net worth&nbsp;amounts to almost $2 billion.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Charles In Space trailer\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rZ2hrjsgkJY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.75\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"600\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 600px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Today he\u2019s the chairman and chief technology officer of Bellevue, Wash.-based Intentional Software, which has Eric Anderson as CEO. Anderson also serves as&nbsp;the chairman of Virginia-based Space Adventures, which arranged for Simonyi\u2019s space trips and offers round-the-moon trips as well.<\/p>\n<p>Simonyi says he\u2019s intrigued by the idea of putting two paying passengers on a round-the-moon trip. Musk\u2019s plan calls for sending the travelers in an autonomously guided SpaceX Dragon capsule that ranges as far as 400,000 miles from Earth but takes advantage of the moon\u2019s gravitational pull for the homeward journey.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt reminds me of Apollo 8,\u201d Simonyi told GeekWire, referring to NASA\u2019s risky round-the-moon mission in 1968. \u201cThe first manned use is audacious.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He was curious about the details: Will a professional astronaut fly with the passengers? (SpaceX says no.) What\u2019s the ticket price? (Musk declined to give a figure but said \u201cit would be comparable to a little more than what the cost of a crewed mission to the space station would be.\u201d That suggests an order-of-magnitude estimate of $100 million per person.)<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_316478\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-316478\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-316478 size-full-width\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/20170309_Paul_Allen_UW_CSE_27-630x420.jpg\" alt=\"Ben Slivka, Lisa Persdotter Simonyi, Charles Simonyi\" width=\"630\" height=\"420\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/20170309_Paul_Allen_UW_CSE_27-630x420.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/20170309_Paul_Allen_UW_CSE_27-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/20170309_Paul_Allen_UW_CSE_27-1240x826.jpg 1240w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/20170309_Paul_Allen_UW_CSE_27.jpg 1730w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-316478\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Investor-philanthropist Ben Slivka, Lisa Persdotter Simonyi and Charles Simonyi smile for the cameras at the University of Washington\u2019s 50th-anniversary celebration for its computer science and engineering program. (GeekWire Photo \/ Kevin Lisota)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Simonyi said he\u2019s not buying a round-the-moon ticket anytime soon, mostly due to the cost. And besides, he\u2019s got a family to think about: In 2008 he married Lisa Persdotter, the daughter of a Swedish millionaire, and they now have two daughters of their own.<\/p>\n<p>But don\u2019t be surprised if the 68-year-old Simonyi takes another trip to the final frontier someday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve said before that if I could take the whole family&nbsp;\u2013 not around the moon, but to space&nbsp;\u2013 I would do it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Software billionaire Charles Simonyi chats with GeekWire\u2019s Alan Boyle at a 50th-anniversary celebration for the University of Washington\u2019s computer science and engineering program. (GeekWire Photo \/ Kevin Lisota) Charles Simonyi, the billionaire software executive who\u2019s flown to space&nbsp;twice, says he doesn\u2019t know who\u2019s on SpaceX\u2019s passenger list for a flight beyond the moon and back. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4852,291,625,1302,316],"class_list":["post-19038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-charles-simonyi","tag-commercial-space","tag-moon","tag-soyuz","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19038"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19038\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}