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.
Mr.
Musk made the announcement on 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,” Mr. 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, Mr. 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, Mr. 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.
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