Elon Musk Is Flying Two Tourists to the Moon in 2018
On a week-long private journey on the SpaceX Dragon.
Elon Musk announced that his aerospace company SpaceX is sending two tourists on a trip around the moon next year. The two unnamed private citizens have paid a “significant deposit” and are scheduled to undergo fitness tests and training for the private week-long journey on the company’s Dragon spacecraft. The first-ever commercial spacecraft — which reportedly got its name from the song “Puff, the Magic Dragon” as a response to critics who deemed Musk’s spaceflight projects as fantasy — will take-off from the same launch pad that the Apollo program used.
“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 public statement. Musk further added that this trip isn’t planned as a one-off project and will contribute to SpaceX‘s ultimate goal of sending passengers to Mars in 2033. “Next year is going to be a big year for carrying people to the space station and hopefully beyond,” announced Musk in a conference.
