The Inner Monologue

If you’d asked me that question twenty years ago, I might’ve said “whatever it costs.” The Moon was the ultimate dream—every childhood poster, every late-night telescope session pointed that way. But somewhere between paying taxes, fixing leaky roofs, and watching humanity squander miracles on influencer campaigns, I’ve learned that the price of wonder isn’t always measured in dollars.

Still, if we’re talking real numbers—if SpaceX or some other outfit started selling tickets tomorrow—I’d probably cap it at what I’d pay for a small house or an early retirement upgrade. Call it half a million, maybe a million, if I could justify it as both pilgrimage and experiment. I wouldn’t go for bragging rights. I’d go for the silence. The perspective. To see Earth not as a map of borders and headlines but as a single, fragile shimmer in black infinity.

That view alone—the sight of home as one glowing idea—might be worth selling everything for. But in the ledger of the Inner Monologue, where value is measured by meaning rather than margin, I suspect the real cost isn’t money at all. It’s the willingness to come back changed. Because once you’ve seen the whole world at once, how do you ever return to just one corner of it?

So how much would I pay to go to the Moon? Enough to make it hurt. Enough to make it matter. But not a dollar more.