Elon Musk’s SpaceX Plans to Send 2 People on Private Trip Around the Moon in 2018

The weeklong trip will take them past the moon and then far enough out until gravity turned the carrier around and then it would come back to Earth. The two people would be in the SpaceX Dragon 2 capsules, launched on the Falcon Heavy rocket. It would all be computer-automated, but Musk said the passengers would still get training and health screenings for emergency purposes.

The trip would take the passengers anywhere between 300,000 and 400,000 miles away from Earth, compared to the trips Russian private citizens have taken to the International Space Station, which is only 200 miles away from Earth.

According to SpaceX, the two people are anonymous private citizens who have already “paid a significant deposit” on the trip that he said would cost a bit more than a crewed mission to the International Space Station would. All he would say about them at this point is that they know each other.Experts say that the late-2018 travel date may be a bit overly ambitious, as SpaceX has yet to get a crew to orbit the Earth safely and without glitches.