At a recent speaking engagement in Colorado Springs, billionaire entrepreneur Jeff Bezos revealed that the Russian space agency once tried to sell him a trip to the moon!
According to Bezos, the agency, known as Roscosmos, pitched to the billionaire a trip to the ISS in one of their Soyuz capsules for a mere $20 million dollars.
With the price tag for such a trip being practically nothing for Bezos, the Russians apparently upped the ante by offering an even more outlandish package.
They proposed that Bezos take part in a flyby of the moon and they would only charge him $200 million dollars for the experience.
Of course, the trip came with the caveat that no one has ever flown a Soyuz that far before, despite it being built to make such a journey.
When Bezos expressed concern about essentially being the test pilot for such a daring mission and having to pay an incredible sum of money for the privilege, the Russians responded with a puzzling negotiating tactic.
They agreed to first test the Soyuz to make sure it could actually perform the lunar flyby ... for an extra $400 million dollars.
Unfortunately for Roscosmos, it appears that their gambit failed as Bezos decided to start his own private space company rather than spend more than half a billion dollars on their potential one way ticket to the moon.
Assuming Bezos' story is true, the odd Russian offer may indicate that the country doesn't have much of a secret space program or else they'd have offered to take him to Mars for a billion.
Then again, maybe they did.
Source: Space.com