Nice: SpaceX Plans To Stage Its First Passenger Flight Around the Moon Next Year

Expensive tickets, I'm sure. I don't think Kayak will turn up any discounts.

But this is big -- the first act of purely commercial space travel. (Note: I said "travel." I'm aware that deploying satellites into space has been a partly commercial venture for some time. This is the next step and it's a big one.)

Come on, you know you want to go. Just take off your Crocs and admit it.

SpaceX to fly two space tourists around the moon in 2018 by Matt McFarland

Two tourists are paying SpaceX for a trip around the moon next year.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced Monday afternoon that the travelers had already placed a significant deposit.

"Next year is going to be a big year for carrying people to the space station and hopefully beyond," Musk said in a conference call with reporters.

First they'll send a team to the International Space Station, which kind of makes the ISS semi-important for the first time just as a way station for commercial transport, and about six months later they'll send two passengers on a lunar fly-by.

No landings yet, alas!

Then Joe Biden's fixin' to have them build a train.

Oh wait he's gone now. Rewrite:

And then Donald Trump's fixin' to build a Moon Wall to keep the aliens out.

I have written about the Institutional Phase of space travel (governments do it) versus the Commercial Phase (private entities do it) before. Not only is the latter more pleasing to the conservative mind, but it also is undoubtedly more futuristic and advanced than the former.

(DON'T COMMENT ON THAT OLD THREAD -- INSTANT BAN. Automated thing to keep spammers out.)

posted by Ace at 07:52 PM

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