SpaceX , Fly me to the moon … Ok!

The Hawthorne-based space company said in a statement that the two individuals have already paid a significant deposit to do a moon mission in its Dragon 2 spacecraft.

No one has been into deep space since the 1972 Apollo moon landings.

At the behest of the Trump administration, NASA is conducting a study to assess safety risks, costs and potential benefits of letting astronauts fly on the debut test flight of its heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule. The travelers would take part in training for emergencies. Exactly how much did they pay Space X and Musk for this is astounding.

The Falcon Heavy itself has a list price of $90 million.

Elon Musk said the passengers are very much aware of the risks.

The physical infrastructure which supported lunar missions disappeared, No longer were Saturn V rockets manufactured, the entire technical and manufacturing apparatus which has supported lunar, military as well as civilians operations had begun to wind down.

With all of that said, I read this announcement and was immediately hit with a wave of trepidation. By setting a goal for the trip around the moon for 2018, Jones thinks that Musk, in typical fashion, is setting an overly ambitious deadline. The two companies are developing capsules to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station. It successfully arrived a day later.

The two will not actually land on the moon, but merely fly around it – if the word “merely” can be used to describe such a remarkable feat.

The capsule would loop around the moon, sort of skim its surface without landing and then return to the Earth.

The company has enjoyed some considerable successes during its foray into space travel – as well as some failures. He would say only that the astronauts are “nobody from Hollywood”. Other versions of Dragon have successfully transported unmanned supply missions to the International Space Station, though neither the Dragon 2 nor the Falcon Heavy have flown their maiden voyage at this point. The president may be referencing the fact that America itself has not been able to launch any astronauts into space from US soil since 2011, when the Space Shuttle program was shuttered. So its first launch is expected to happen this summer.

“This presents an opportunity for humans to return to deep space for the first time in 45 years”, he said. The CEO is already planning to accommodate space trips like this one at least two times a year.

As a concept, this is something that certainly does stir the imagination.

“It’s not easy”, John Logsdon, professor emeritus at George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, said of Musk’s plan. In those cases, of course, we were only dealing with a resupply mission to the ISS and the equipment lost was easily replaceable.

While the company enjoyed the successes of its involvement into space travel where there was some failure too. I’ve been following the adventures of SpaceX from the beginning and along with the excitement they generate, there have been more than a few horrifying moments.