SpaceX Plans To Send Two People Around the Moon In 2018 (gizmodo.com)

Today, SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced that in 2018, the company will fly two private citizens around the Moon in its Dragon 2 spacecraft, carried by its Falcon Heavy rocket. "While the voyagers' names have not been disclosed, according to SpaceX, a 'significant deposit' has already been made," Gizmodo reports. From the report: According to Musk, the mission will last approximately one week. The passengers will travel beyond the moon and loop back to Earth, spanning roughly 300,000 to 400,000 miles. While the passengers will undergo some sort of training beforehand, it's unclear if the two have any experience with piloting, nevermind spaceflight. The mission, although unrelated to NASA's plan to slingshot astronauts around the Moon in several years' time using the SLS rocket and the Orion capsule, was made possible in part by funding SpaceX has received to develop its human spaceflight technology through the commercial crew program. "This is a really thing that's happened," Elon Musk told reporters at a press conference. "We've been approached to do a crewed mission beyond the Moon ... [and these passengers] are very serious about it. We plan to do that probably Dragon 2 spacecraft with the Falcon Heavy rocket." He went on to say the company is "expected to do more than one mission of this nature."

Comments

This could be the beggining

[jediborg]

If (and that's a big if) private space companies can actually make money doing this, the profits could go towards funding more ambitious private projects, such as hotels on the moon, and astroid mining. Just need to start making money off of space tourism so space exploration and space science can be funded in the future without having to rely on government spending, which can be extremely fickle depending on politics and often comes with strings attached.

Lottery?

[trout007]

Is there a legal reason SpaceX can't have a lottery for tickets? Seems like a good way to fund these types of things.

Re:Elon Musk is Delos D. Harriman

[Megane]

James Cameron is a good bet as a one of the two. He's already been to the Mariana Trench, so why not go as far as possible in the other direction? He could film a 4K HDR of the trip, and it would probably even end up making a net profit in box office sales. If he can get a telescopic view of the Apollo 11 landing site, that would be pure gold.

Re:Crew Service Module??

[bobbied]

Elion is getting more and more like a space cadet all the time. But I think it's on purpose.

I'm starting to think he's the modern day Howard Hughes. Not from being a personal eccentric mental case, but from his visionary "over the top" grand plans which far and away exceed his ability to achieve, both technically and financially. Like Hughes, Musk has some underlying reasons for these crazy ideas which obviously won't happen, related to creating some cover stories for some unrelated contract work for the government.

Remember Glomar Explorer? Hughes said he was going to mine the ocean floor for minerals and make a fortune? Yea, that was a cover story for a black operation to go pick up a sunken soviet submarine so the USA could have a closer look..

Is Musk doing the same thing? Mixing in some cover stories as grandiose plans that will never get off the ground just to cover up the real purpose? We might find out in 30 years that's what's going on...