SPACEX: BILLIONAIRE WILL BE ITS FIRST MOON PASSENGER

ANGELES» SpaceX says JapaLOS nese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa will be first private passenger on a solo rocket trip around the moon.

The 42yearold entrepreneur appeared at an event Monday evening at the space launch company’s headquarters of the space launch company near Los Angeles.

He says it’s been his lifelong dream to go into space. He says just thinking about the journey gets his heart racing.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk says Maezawa will fly to the moon aboard a new rocket called the BFR, which is still in development.

Musk outlined a somewhat different mission last year.

Musk said two people who know each other approached the company about a weeklong flight to the moon and back.

That original mission would have used a Falcon Heavy rocket and a Dragon crew capsule similar to the one NASA astronauts will use to fly to the International Space Station as early as next year.

The new SpaceX strategy is still to fly around the moon without landing.

On its website, SpaceX is touting the “first passenger on lunar BFR mission,” implying there will be more moon trips.

Twentyfour men flew to the moon during NASA’s Apollo program from 1968 through 1972 and half of them made it to the lunar surface.

The space agency is planning its own lunar flyby with a crew around 2023. It also aims to build a staffed gateway near the moon during the 2020s. The outpost would serve as a steppingoff point for the lunar surface, Mars and points beyond. — The Associated Press