Talk about great mileage...

Europe's mission to moon called success

BERLIN - A fuel-efficient compact spacecraft has made it into lunar orbit, signaling Europe's first successful mission to the moon and putting the inexpensive probe on course to study the lunar surface, European Space Agency officials said Tuesday.

Almost more impressive than reaching its destination was the slow and steady way the SMART-1 craft puttered its way there — flying 13 months in ever expanding circles around the earth using a cutting-edge ion propulsion system.

The spacecraft used only 130 pounds of the 181 pounds of xenon fuel it had aboard.

"It works out to something like 2 million kilometers per liter, which is quite an achievement," said ESA spokesman Franco Bonacina from the space agency's headquarters in Paris. That works out to more than 5 million miles per gallon.

Read the rest here: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...pe_moon_mission

So, how much just does it cost then for a gallon of xenon fuel?

-m.