Fly me to the moon

Should companies honor reservations for a spaceflight made before civilian spaceflights existed?

Polaris Dawn, a spaceflight operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, traveled into space on Sept. 10 and successfully returned to earth on Sept. 15. Four private citizens operated the spacecraft. The operation was funded by Jared Isaacman, a billionaire, who reportedly paid about $200 million for the flight.

Isaacman’s flight on Musk’s spacecraft reminded me that at some point in my childhood, I’m pretty sure I signed up to reserve a flight to the moon.

I vaguely recall that when I was between 8 and 11 years old, I signed something to make a reservation to take a flight to the moon when they became available. A little bit of research suggests that my fuzzy recollection wasn’t simply imagined, but rather might have been part of a marketing campaign done by Pan American Airways called “‘First Moons Flight’ Club.” Between 1968 and 1971, Pan Am issued more than 90,000 cards to people who made reservations for a flight to the moon, although apparently informal reservations with Pan Am began as early as 1964.

While I have a memory of signing up, I have no memory of ever receiving a card. But somewhere, someone may still have a registry of everyone who signed up, including me.

Had Pan Am not gone out of business in 1991, presumably it would still be sitting on that list. Sure, it may have been nothing more than a marketing gimmick to engage customers who were caught up in space adventures around the time of the first moon landing on July 20, 1969. But if Pan Am were still around would it have an obligation to honor those reservations more than 50 years after they were made?

My guess is that legally Pan Am likely would have had no such obligation, as long as no money changed hands. My research suggests no money was requested. I am confident back then I had no money to send in to secure my place in line.

But should flights into space have become available and Pan Am were around as one of the purveyors of such flights, I believe the right thing would be to try to contact those on the list to gauge their interest. Granted, since the list was compiled well before the days of email or cell phone numbers that follow you around, many of the people would be challenging to track down. Nevertheless, the company could make a good faith effort to make good on the promise of space travel dangled decades earlier.

Since Pan Am is no longer with us, it seems a prime opportunity for Elon Musk’s SpaceX or Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin or Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic to do what they can to get hold of that reservations list. Wouldn’t it be grand for us to be given first dibs on hopping on board?

Of course, Pan Am never told us when the flights would become available. Nor did it name a price for each seat. I suspect most of us would have to take a pass at plunking down more than several hundred thousand dollars for a seat on Virgin Atlantic to several hundred million to book the whole craft on SpaceX. Still, when a company lures us in by promising the moon, the right thing would be to ask before assuming we can’t afford the adventure.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice," is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues. 

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2024 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.