SpaceX has yet to send Starship to orbit, but that’s not stopping the company from selling rides aboard the future megarocket. Dennis and Akiko Tito are the first passengers announced for SpaceX’s second commercial spaceflight around the Moon. The pair, along with 10 others, will fly aboard the company’s Starship on a trajectory that will take the spacecraft through cislunar space.
No date has been set for the mission, as a fully stacked Starship has yet to leave the ground. The billionaire couple refrained from disclosing the price, according to Ars Technica, but you can bet it was a pretty penny.
Dennis Tito — the OG space tourist — made headlines in 2001 by becoming the first commercial astronaut to visit the International Space Station, but the U.S. engineer and entrepreneur is clearly looking for another thrill. His wife “will be among the first women to fly around the Moon on a Starship,” according to SpaceX. Riding aboard Starship, the passengers will come to within 200 kilometres of the lunar surface during their thrilling one week journey around the Moon.
This will technically be the third Starship mission to perform a circumlunar trajectory around the Moon. The first will be a Polaris Program demonstration mission, while the second — the first official commercial mission — is dearMoon, a space tourism and art project funded by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. For the dearMoon mission, Maezawa will be joined by eight yet-to-be announced passengers, and either one or two crew members.
SpaceX is currently developing Starship at its Boca Chica launch facility in Texas. Company CEO Elon Musk is hoping to launch a fully stacked Starship, consisting of a first stage booster and a second stage spacecraft, before the year closes. It’s fair to say that Starship won’t be certified for human spaceflight any time soon, which may pose a problem for Dennis Tito, who turned 82 earlier this year. According to Ars Technica, Dennis and his wife passed physical and cognitive examinations and they’re good to go — at least for now. It could be years before we see the first humans ride on board SpaceX’s megarocket.
A pending challenge will be for SpaceX to ensure safety, as the Starship upper stage needs to survive re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere and perform a vertical landing on the surface. Frighteningly, the rocket won’t be equipped with an abort system to quickly move passengers away from danger in the event of an anomaly, either during takeoff or landing.
SpaceX is also under contract to develop a crewed landing vehicle for NASA’s upcoming Artemis 3 mission to the Moon, currently slated for 2025. The company will be leveraging Starship for the task, which will require the spacecraft to perform a vertical landing on the lunar surface.
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