One thing you cannot deny. Elon Musk has humongous dreams. But this moonshot might be a shot too far - at least in terms of the timelines.
He wants to launch two paying tourists(obviously not professional astronauts) to circumnavigate the moon and back to earth. The capsule he plans to use, spacex dragon 2, has yet to undergo human flight testing and will only do so months before the estimated launch.
SpaceX has without a doubt gained a ton of experience and lessons from its recent launches. But they have yet to send anything, with or without people, beyond earth orbit. They have yet to send anything with people inside into earth orbit.
In a hastily arranged announcement, Elon Musk has revealed a plan to launch a Dragon 2 spacecraft on a circumlunar mission, with two paying customers. The launch, which will be conducted by a Falcon Heavy rocket in late 2018, is being seen as a major statement of intent by SpaceX, especially when NASA is conducting a study to launch a similar mission at least a year later.
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/02/spacex-two-citizens-dragon-2-lunar-mission/
Topic: Tourists To The Moon (Read 495 times)