Vacation of the Century: The Moon

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Have you ever wanted to take a trip around the moon? Well now you can!

SpaceX has recently agreed to fly two private citizens around the Moon in late 2018. This date would coincide with NASA’s historic Apollo 8 launch, which would have its 50th anniversary in 2018. Driven by the natural desire for exploration, these two lucky people will soon begin training. The spacecraft, Dragon 2, largely funded by NASA, is designed to carry a crew and two private citizens. Additionally, NASA provided 2.6 billion dollars for SpaceX to fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The symbiotic relationship between these two space agencies prompted SpaceX to offer the first two seats on this mission to NASA’s choice, which would force these two private citizens to move to a later mission. “NASA always has first priority,” said Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX. This voyage, lasting about a week, will circumnavigate the Moon and return to Earth, reaching a maximum point of 400,000 miles away from our planet’s surface. This historic will launch from Kennedy Space Center’s Pad 39A, which mirrors the legendary launches from the Apollo missions. This will be the first time in 44 years that mankind has ventured this far out into space.

This is not expected to be a first time mission, as others have expressed interest in a similar venture. This means that even you can travel out into the unknown, for an estimated low price of around 100$ million!