SpaceX to Fly Two Tourists Around Moon

SpaceX has announced plans to fly two private citizens around the moon in 2018, the first such trip in more than 45 years. The two individuals taking part in the mission, who CEO Elon Musk said “have already paid a significant deposit,” have not been named. Musk dismissed speculation that the pair might be celebrities, saying only that “it’s nobody from Hollywood” in a statement on the SpaceX website. The space tourists will fly on a spaceship that will undergo its first unmanned test flight later this year, with help from NASA. They will also have to undergo health and fitness tests and training prior to the trip, Musk said. The trip will not involve a lunar landing, but will see the space tourists circle around the Moon and skim the surface. The unnamed passengers are “entering this with their eyes open, knowing that there is some risk here,” Musk said, adding that SpaceX would “do everything we can to minimize that risk.”