Next-Generation: Private astronauts will fly around the Moon

SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk announced on Monday a mission to send a pair of regular people around the moon by the end of 2018. Two private citizens, not astronauts, will fly in the Dragon 2 spacecraft, which will be launched by a Falcon Heavy rocket. Both the Dragon 2 capsule and the Falcon Heavy are still under development, and the first Falcon Heavy launch is expected sometime this summer.

The two private citizens, who have not yet been named, approached SpaceX about taking a trip around the moon, and have "already paid a significant deposit" for the cost of the mission, according to a statement from the company. The names of the two individuals will be announced later, pending the result of initial health tests to ensure their fitness for the mission, the statement said.

The two-person crew will be trained for emergencies, but the Dragon spaceship carrying them will fly on autopilot, loop around the far side of the moon on a “free-return” trajectory, then speed back to Earth. Musk said SpaceX aims to launch the circumlunar flight in the fourth quarter of 2018.

“This would do a long leap around the moon,” Musk said. “We’re working out the exact parameters, but this would be approximately a week-long mission, and it would skim the surface of the moon, go quite a bit farther out into deep space, and then loop back to Earth. I’m guessing probably distance-wise, maybe 300,000 or 400,000 miles.”

"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," SpaceX representatives said in the statement. 

Musk said the price SpaceX’s moon mission fliers will pay is confidential, “but it would be comparable to a little more than what the cost of a crewed mission to the space station would be.” For context, one ticket on the Russian Soyuz rocket costs NASA around $80 million.

Space Adventures, a Virginia-based firm, is the only company to date to arrange for paying tourists to fly into space, brokering eight flights by seven clients to the International Space Station in the 2000s. Other companies, like Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, offer suborbital trips for paying tourists and researchers, but they have not commenced commercial service.

In 2011, Space Adventures announced a venture in partnership with Russia to send two tourists on a trip around the moon for $150 million per person inside a modified Soyuz capsule, but the mission never materialized.

NASA applauded these private companies for “reaching higher” in a statement the agency published online. “We will work closely with SpaceX to ensure it safely meets the contractual obligations to return the launch of astronauts to U.S. soil and continue to successfully deliver supplies to the International Space Station.”