Fly to the moon with Elon Musk

Yesterday, Elon Musk announced a bold new SpaceX mission for 2018, flying two as-yet-unnamed passengers in a full orbit of the Moon. This will be the first entirely private passenger flight that’s ever been attempted, without the benefit of broader government support — an achievement with new possibilities and new dangers. People have paid for the privilege of reaching orbit before — seven of them, in fact. Musk’s passengers will be going farther, slingshotting around the Moon, and they won’t be tagging along on an existing mission, either.

SpaceX is building its own rockets and planning its own missions, beholden to no larger agency or mission. Companies like Virgin Galactic and XCOR Aerospace have ventured in this direction, but they’ve never gone beyond suborbital flights — more of a high-altitude plane than a spacecraft. Outside of crewed missions, lots of fully private space companies have made a good business out of launching equipment and supplies into orbit. But human exploration is essentially uncharted territory for a private company, and for the time being, SpaceX will have the field to itself.

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http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/28/14762314/space-x-moon-flight-private-tourism-elon-musk