SpaceX to send 2 tourists around the moon: All you need to know

Elon Musk is nothing if not ambitious.

The SpaceX founder wants his company to lead the charge to build a city on Mars, and next year, the spaceflight company plans to fly its first astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA.

So generally, SpaceX is pretty busy. But that doesn't mean it can't take on just one other little project, right?

Namely, in 2018, SpaceX plans to fly a pair of (presumably rich) private citizens around the moon and bring them back home.

It all sounds pretty intense, so let us break it down for you.

SpaceX is planning to fly around the moon, not land on it​

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At the moment, SpaceX isn't planning to actually land on the surface of the moon for this mission.

Instead, the company is opting to use its Falcon Heavy rocket and crewed Dragon spacecraft to circumnavigate the moon before coming back home to Earth.

The flight profile involves skimming the surface of the lunar body in a "long loop around the moon," Musk said during a press conference Monday.

The mission should take about a week.

Two people are going, but we don't know who they are

Perhaps the most mysterious part of this whole mission is its passengers.

SpaceX has said that the two space explorers have already paid a pretty hefty deposit for the chance to fly on this mission, though the company hasn't yet revealed the names of the individuals expecting to fly next year.

The mission itself will cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for the hopeful space explorers, and Musk is keeping their names confidential since they haven't given the company permission to release their names.

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Read the full article here.

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