Spacex Says It Will Fly 2 People to Moon Next Year

SpaceX said it will fly two people to the moon next year, a feat not attempted since NASA’s Apollo heyday close to half a century ago.

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Tech billionaire Elon Musk - the company’s founder - announced the surprising news.

Two people who know one another approached the company about sending them on a week long flight just beyond the moon, according to Musk. He won’t identify the pair or the price tag. They’ve already paid a “significant” deposit, he noted.

Musk said SpaceX is on track to launch astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA in mid-2018. This moon mission would follow about six months later, by the end of the year under the current schedule, using a Dragon crew capsule and a Falcon heavy rocket.

The moon mission is designed to be autonomous - unless something goes wrong, Musk said.