The First Moon Flights Club was a marketing campaign of American airline Pan Am that ran between 1968 and 1971. Self-described as a space tourism program, it was essentially a "waiting list" of people interested in taking commercial flights to the Moon. While some considered it to be a tongue-in-cheek campaign, [1] [2] Pan Am publicly insisted that the program was legitimate. [3]
According to popular legend, the program was conceived in 1964, when Austrian journalist Gerhart Pistor demanded a flight to the Moon at a Vienna travel agency. [4] The travel agency accepted his deposit of 500 Austrian shilling, and forwarded his request to Pan Am and Aeroflot. [5] At Pan Am, the request was eventually forwarded to founder Juan Trippe, who saw an opportunity in capitalizing on the obsession with human spaceflight. [4] Pistor's reservation was accepted two weeks later, [5] and was told that the first flight was expected to depart in 2000. [6]
The program was established in 1968, [3] and no deposits were required for reservations. [3] Reservations did not include the fare, which Pan Am said was "not fully resolved, and may be out of this world." [7]
At the beginning of its operation, the program received only a small flow of requests. The popularity of the program was bolstered when the science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey was released in 1968. The movie, featuring a fictional Pan Am "Space Clipper", led some audiences to believe Pan Am's program was legitimate. [4] The first major surge of sales occurred after the successful Apollo 8 flight in 1968. [4] Trippe phoned ABC to make it known that the airline was keeping a list of people interested in a commercial flight to the Moon. After the publicity stunt, the company received "a flurry of requests". [1] The program was also promoted on radio and TV spots. [8] By July 20, 1969, during the lunar landing of Apollo 11, Pan Am's program had 25,000 reservation requests. [1] The successful Moon landing further increased sales. [4]
Reservers were given a membership card issued at no cost. [4] [6] The cards were signed by Pan Am's vice president for sales, James Montgomery, and the "Space Clipper" was featured on the back of the card. A serial number was printed on the card, which reflected the reserver's position on the waiting list. [7] 100,000 cards were printed in total. [3]
The success of the program attracted competitor Trans World Airlines to maintain a similar waiting list, [1] who ended their program after receiving around 6,000 names and public interest had waned. [3]
Its waiting list was closed on March 3, 1971, [5] when the program became an administrative burden during an era of financial troubles at the airline. [3] [6] By then, the list had 93,000 names from 90 countries, and included many public figures such as Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater, Walter Cronkite and George Shapiro. [1] [3] As late as 1989, Pan Am maintained that the program was legitimate, [1] and that the memberships would eventually be redeemed. [8] A Pan Am spokeswoman called the program "a little off-scheduled", but promised that they were "keeping the list in an archive and will pull it out when—note that I didn't say if—the airline starts regular service." [5] The airline declared bankruptcy in 1991, formally ending the program. [1] [6]
The Boeing 747 is a large, long-range wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States between 1968 and 2023. After introducing the 707 in October 1958, Pan Am wanted a jet 2+1⁄2 times its size, to reduce its seat cost by 30%. In 1965, Joe Sutter left the 737 development program to design the 747. In April 1966, Pan Am ordered 25 Boeing 747-100 aircraft, and in late 1966, Pratt & Whitney agreed to develop the JT9D engine, a high-bypass turbofan. On September 30, 1968, the first 747 was rolled out of the custom-built Everett Plant, the world's largest building by volume. The first flight took place on February 9, 1969, and the 747 was certified in December of that year. It entered service with Pan Am on January 22, 1970. The 747 was the first airplane called a "Jumbo Jet" as the first wide-body airliner.
Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and commonly known as Pan Am, was an American airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States for much of the 20th century. It was the first airline to fly worldwide and pioneered numerous innovations of the modern airline industry, such as jumbo jets and computerized reservation systems. Until its dissolution on December 4, 1991, Pan Am "epitomized the luxury and glamour of intercontinental travel", and it remains a cultural icon of the 20th century, identified by its blue globe logo, the use of the word "Clipper" in its aircraft names and call signs, and the white uniform caps of its pilots.
Juan Terry Trippe was an American commercial aviation pioneer, entrepreneur and the founder of Pan American World Airways, one of the iconic airlines of the 20th century. He was involved in the introduction of the Sikorsky S-42, which opened trans-Pacific airline travel, the Boeing 307 Stratoliner which introduced cabin pressurization to airline operations, the Boeing 707 which started a new era in low cost jet transportation, and the Boeing 747 jumbo jets. Trippe's signing of the 747 contract coincided with the 50th anniversary of Boeing. He also founded InterContinental Hotels & Resorts.
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Edwin Charles Musick was chief pilot for Pan American World Airways and pioneered many of Pan Am's transoceanic routes including the famous route across the Pacific Ocean on the China Clipper.
The Sikorsky S-42 was a commercial flying boat designed and built by Sikorsky Aircraft to meet requirements for a long-range flying boat laid out by Pan American World Airways in 1931. The innovative design included wing flaps, variable-pitch propellers, and a tail-carrying full-length hull. The prototype first flew on 29 March 1934, and, in the period of development and test flying that followed, quickly established ten world records for payload-to-height. The "Flying Clipper" and the "Pan Am Clipper" were other names for the S-42.
The Sikorsky S-40 was an American amphibious flying boat built by Sikorsky in the early 1930s for Pan American Airways.
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