An American aerospace manufacturer on Monday announced plans to send two tourists on an orbit around the moon by the end of 2018.
Hawthorne, Calif.-based Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX, has already selected the two people who will take part in the project, according to a press release from the company. CEO Elon Musk told reporters at a press conference on Monday afternoon that the two people know each other, are not celebrities and will be funding the trip out of their own pocketbooks.
The mission will take place on SpaceX’s Dragon 2 vehicle on a Falcon Heavy rocket and is expected to cover 300,000 to 400,000 miles in its “long loop around the moon,” as Musk described it.
“Dragon is designed to be an autonomous vehicle,” Musk said, adding that it has carried out humanless cargo missions to the International Space Station.
“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,” the company said in a statement.
SpaceX will administer health and fitness tests on the tourists before initial training for the mission begins later this year.
The rocket will take off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral.
