Tutor HuntResources Engineering Resources

Live Science

SpaceX to Fly Passengers On Private Trip Around the Moon in 2018

Date : 01/03/2017

Author Information

Marina

Uploaded by : Marina
Uploaded on : 01/03/2017
Subject : Engineering

SpaceX will fly two private citizens on a trip around the moon in 2018, the company`s founder Elon Musk announced Monday (Feb. 27).
The private spaceflight company will use its Falcon Heavy rocket to send the two paying passengers into space aboard one of the company`s Dragon spacecraft. 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 passengers will be the only people on board what is expected to be about a weeklong trip around the moon, according to Musk, who spoke with reporters during a phone conference today.

"This would be a long loop around the moon It would skim the surface of the moon, go quite a bit further out into deep space and then loop back to Earth," Musk said during the teleconference. "So I`m guessing, distance-wise, maybe [300,000] or 400,000 miles [about 500,000 to 650,000 kilometers].'lt;/p>The Falcon Heavy rocket consists of a Falcon 9 rocket with two additional first stage boosters strapped on. The integrated Falcon Heavy and Dragon crew capsule will undergo an FAA evaluation process for the moon flight, Musk said.

Musk also said that NASA "always has first priority," and that if the agency wanted its own astronauts to be the first people to fly on a "mission of this nature," then "of course NASA would take priority.'lt;/p>NASA currently pays about $80 million per seat on the three-person Russian Soyuz vehicle. SpaceX`s first commercial crew contract with the agency is for $2.6 billion the company is required to provide at least two and up to six flights to the station on the Dragon capsule, which can carry seven passengers at a time. That breaks down to anywhere from $1.3 billion to $433 million per flight.

"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


This resource was uploaded by: Marina