"SpaceX to send 2 Tourists to the Moon and Back in '18" Topic

SpaceX announced Monday that it plans to send two private individuals around the Moon by the end of 2018. This highly ambitious flight would mark the first human return to deep space in nearly 50 years. During a teleconference with reporters, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said the two people would fly an approximately week-long mission in a "long loop" around the Moon, to about 400,000 miles from Earth, before returning home.

Musk said the company would launch its Dragon 2 spacecraft on top of a Falcon Heavy rocket and that the two passengers would be flying solo, without the assistance of professional astronauts. Dragon 2, he said, is designed as an autonomous vehicle. The paying customers would not be blind to the risks, he added. "I think they are entering this with their eyes open, knowing there is some risk here," Musk said. "They're not naive. We're going to do everything we can do to minimize our risk, but the risk is not zero."

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WOW! When I read this, my jaw hit the floor. I've been a SpaceX fan for a while – especially on how it's been running it's manufacturing side for years.

One thing that bothered me about the article was the cheep hit at the Falcon Heavy. The main reason why it's been delayed for so long that it wasn't really needed, since the upgrades on the Falcon9 (from MK1 to FT) has increased its throw weight to LEO is essentially the same as the Falcon Heavy MK1 (22.5t vs 25t)*. Furthermore, from an engineering prospective, since the Falcon Heavy shares the vast majority of its components with the Falcon9, it's more economical to wait for a mature design to finalize the FH rather than iterate during all 5 Falcon9 marks.

Anyways, I can't wait!

*Current projected throw weight to LEO for a Falcon Heavy is in the 55-60t range on fully expendable mode, and I've seen estimates in the 15-20t range on fully reusing all three first stages. For comparison, the SaturnIB which launched Apollo missions to LEO (Apollo 7, Apollo-Soyuz, flights to Skylab) had a throw-weight of 20t, the Saturn V had a 140t to LEO and the Pork Barrel/ Senate Launch System has projected a throw weight of 70 to 130t depending on the mark of the vehicle, and is by far the most expensive one listed here even when adjusting for inflation)

Sorry…. I can't help but be reminded…

youtu.be/Q8jhb5NnADM

Is Alice Kramden going to be one of them?

Lol to both JShutt and Winston. I notice Elon is too smart to be one of the first astronauts.

Considering they have yet to even fly an unmanned mission with their Dragon capsule, this seems extremely premature to me. While I have no problem with creating dead billionaires, we don't need Dead Billionaires in Spaaaaace!

….we don't need Dead Billionaires in Spaaaaace!

We don't?

Well if they hit the moon. It won't be dead billionaires in space. But dead billionaires on the moon.

The more this happens the better, the costs will come down and people will start working around the solar system. maybe even set up lives on some of the other planets and the human race will have a chance.

--and then we start mining asteroids and then the Belters declare independence and then--

Well NASA still hasn't told anyone that Curiosity found a buried Shadow ship on Mars(why do you think the little rover is still going strong, The shadows have powerful energy sources. )

The moon be a harsh mistress…yaarr.