SpaceX plans to send 2 tourists around moon in 2018
SpaceX, the ambitious rocket company headed by Elon Musk, wants to send a couple of tourists around the moon and back before the end of next year. If they manage that feat, they would be the first humans to venture that far into space in more than 40 years.
Musk made the announcement Monday in a telephone news conference. He said two private individuals approached the company to see if SpaceX would be willing to send them on a weeklong cruise, which would fly past the surface of the moon — but not land — and continue outward before Earth’s gravity turned the spacecraft around and brought it back for a landing.
“This would do a long loop around the moon,” Musk said. The company is aiming to launch this moon mission in late 2018, he said. The two people would spend about a week inside one of SpaceX’s Dragon 2 capsules, launched on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket. The spacecraft would be automated, but the travelers would undergo training for emergencies, Musk said. He did not say how much the travelers would pay for the ride, but the Falcon Heavy itself has a list price of $90 million.
He said the two would-be private space travelers wished to remain anonymous for now, and he declined to describe them except to say that they knew each other. In response to a reporter’s question, Musk did say the two were not Hollywood people.
No astronauts have ventured beyond low-Earth orbit since the last of NASA’s Apollo moon landings in 1972. NASA is working on a rocket that would once again be capable of taking astronauts to deep space. But that first launch, without anyone on board, is scheduled for late next year. This month, NASA announced that it is looking at the possibility of putting astronauts on the first flight, but NASA officials say that would delay the launch into 2019.
The rocket that SpaceX would use for the voyage is more powerful than its current Falcon 9 workhorse, but not as large as NASA’s. It has yet to get off the ground. The maiden flight, delayed repeatedly, is now scheduled for this summer.
Meanwhile, SpaceX has a contract to take NASA astronauts to the International Space Station using the Dragon 2 capsule launched on the smaller Falcon 9 rocket. That program has also encountered delays. SpaceX is scheduled to launch a crewless test flight this year and take its few NASA passengers next spring, although a report by the Government Accountability Office this month cast doubt that SpaceX would be able to do it that quickly.
NASA has financed much of SpaceX’s spacecraft development, and Musk said the space agency has priority. He said that if NASA decided it wanted to put its astronauts on the Falcon Heavy’s first moon flight, SpaceX would do that.