SpaceX has announced that it plans to take two tourists on a flight around the Moon in 2018.
CEO Elon Musk announced on Monday that two people had paid for the first private manned mission around the moon and they will begin training for the trip later on in the year.
“We are excited to announce that SpaceX has been approached to fly two private citizens on a trip around the moon late next year,” SpaceX said “They have already paid a significant deposit to do a moon mission.”
Fly me to the moon … Okhttps://t.co/6QT8m5SHwn
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 27, 2017
Press TV reports:
“We’ve been approached to do a crewed mission beyond the moon from some private individuals… they’re very serious about it. We plan to do that, probably in the fourth quarter of next year. That would be on a Dragon 2 spacecraft and a Falcon Heavy rocket, which is due to do its maiden launch this summer,” he said.
He added that 2018 will be a “big year” for taking people to the International Space Station and even beyond.
Musk said that the trip will probably take about a week and that its course would be across the Moon’s surface and then into deep space before returning to Earth.
“Like the Apollo astronauts before them, these individuals will travel into space carrying the hopes and dreams of all humankind, driven by the universal human spirit of exploration,” said SpaceX in a post on its website.
