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Two lucky tourists to hitch a ride around the moon in 2018, thanks to SpaceX

These two individuals will travel into space, carrying the hopes and dreams of all mankind!

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Before the ambitious rocket company, SpaceX sends humans to colonize Mars, it aims to send them first to space, around the Moon. Headed by Elon Musk, the company wants to fly two tourists to orbit the moon and back. Just to freshen up your memory, the US has not sent astronauts to the Moon since the early 1970s. If the mission is successful, they would be the first humans to venture this far into space, in over 40-50 years!

The launch of the first privately funded tourist flight beyond the orbit of the International Space Station is tentatively targeted for late 2018, Elon Musk told reporters on a conference call.

SpaceX plans to launch these two paying passengers around the moon using a spaceship under development for NASA astronauts and a heavy-lift rocket yet to be flown. However, the identity of the passengers has not been disclosed. It would be a weeklong mission and it is "nobody from Hollywood."These space tourists, who know each other, have put down a "substantial" deposit and would undergo "extensive training before going on the mission."

Musk pointed out that there is a market for one or two of these expeditions per year. These space tourist fares charged by SpaceX could eventually contribute 10 to 20 percent of the company's revenue as well.  He added that the privately funded moon expedition would take place after his California-based company begins flying crew to the International Space Station for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Plans call for SpaceX's two-person lunar venture to fly some 300,000 to 400,000 miles (480,000 to 640,000 km) from Earth past the moon before Earth's gravity pulls the spacecraft back into the atmosphere for a parachute landing. SpaceX's own Falcon Heavy rocket, which Musk wants to use for the lunar tourist mission, is scheduled to make a debut test flight later this year.

With this move, SpaceX joins a growing list of companies developing commercial passenger spaceflight services. At the moment, Virgin Galactic is testing a six-passenger, two-pilot spaceship to carry paying customers about 62 miles (100 km) above Earth, high enough to experience brief microgravity and see Earth's curvature against the blackness of space. Tickets for this ride cost $250,000 each.

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