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Artist illustration of SpaceX BFR spacecraft cruising around the moon.
Credit: SpaceX
SpaceX's giant spacecraft has a moon mission with its crew.
A "private passenger" has signed up for a trip around the moon aboard SpaceX's BFR spacecraft combo, the company's representatives announced via Twitter tonight (13 September). SpaceX's founder and CEO, Elon Musk, will fill in the details on Monday (September 17th), at a webcast event that starts at 9pm. EDT (0100 GMT 18 September).
But Musk may have already given us an idea of the identity of the explorer of the private space. Someone on Twitter asked Musk if he was the passenger, and the billionaire entrepreneur responded by tweeting a Japanese flag emoji. [The BFR: SpaceX’s Mars-Colonization Architecture in Images]
SpaceX has signed with the world's first private passenger to ride the moon aboard our BFR launcher – an important step towards the access of ordinary people who dream of traveling in space. Discover who is flying and why on Monday, September 17th. pic.twitter.com/64z4rygYhk
– SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 14, 2018
SpaceX announced in February 2017 that two people had signed up for a weeklong hike around the moon, which the company planned to launch before the end of 2018. This mission was to use the Dragon capsule and the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
Last June, the Wall Street Journal reported that the flight had slipped in 2019 at the earliest. The SpaceX representatives told the Journal that such a mission remained in the company's plans but did not set a timetable or other details. Presumably, we will have a schedule on Monday and we may learn if the passenger traveling on a BFR trip is a passenger on the Dragon-Falcon Heavy flight.
The BFR – which is short for "Big Falcon Rocket" (or the NSFW version, "Big F *** ing Rocket") – is still in development and will be made up of the most powerful rocket ever built. A spacecraft capable of carrying 100 or so passengers both to and from Mars, said Musk.These two elements will be reusable.
The main task of BFR will be to facilitate the settlement of Red Planet – this is the main reason why Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 – but it will also perform a variety of other tasks.
Indeed, Musk said that SpaceX plans to phase out all of its rockets and spacecraft, leaving the WCR to take control of everything. The company envisions the BFR launching satellite launches, cleaning up space debris, transporting people on extremely fast "point-to-point" routes on Earth – and, of course, helping our species spread through the solar system, on Mars and beyond.
Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @ michaeldwall and Google+. follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
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