Pan Am began the “First Moon Flight’s Club” in 1968, a waiting list for civilian space travel before we even landed a man on the moon. It wasn’t just a gimmick–it was something that the airline’s founder Juan Trippe believed would happen in the near future. From Cosmos:

“IT WAS CHRISTMAS EVE 1968. Three men — Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders — were coasting 100 km above the Moon, the first astronauts to ever circle it. From inside their tiny Apollo 8 command capsule, they pointed a TV camera toward Earth, showing millions of viewers back home what no one had ever seen before. They snapped a famous picture — Earthrise — of our blue world ascending above the lunar horizon. And then they read aloud the story of creation according to the Book of Genesis.

Back home, a record TV audience was watching. When transmission ended 17 minutes later, an announcer broke the reverie to breathlessly report that Juan Trippe, the founder of Pan American — one of the world’s largest airlines at the time — had announced that Pan Am would start taking reservations for commercial passenger flights to the Moon.

The next day, The New York Times reported that Pan Am had been deluged with inquiries and had established a First Moon Flights Club — effectively, a glorified waiting list for space tourists. Within days, Trans-World Airlines followed suit.”

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“In the beginning…”:

“I’m so tired and I wish I was the moon tonight”: