'Moon tourists' sign up for SpaceX flight
Two private citizens likely to be paying millions for chance to fly around the moon
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Elon Musk's rocket company SpaceX has announced that two private citizens have paid for a flight around the moon.
Musk said the mission is planned for "late 2018" and that the pair "have already paid a significant deposit".
He added: "Like the Apollo astronauts before them, these individuals will travel into space carrying the hopes and dreams of all humankind, driven by the universal human spirit of exploration.
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"This presents an opportunity for humans to return to deep space for the first time in 45 years."
The flight will take about a week to complete and will fly around the moon without touching down on its surface.
"[It] would rely on SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket, the massive engine that the company hopes to test for the first time this summer, and a Dragon 2 capsule," The Guardian reports.
The names of the first two travellers have not been released, says CNN, but they are likely to be "paying millions for the adventure".
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Musk said the cost of the flight would be "comparable" to sending an astronaut to the International Space Station, for which Russia's space agency Roscosmos charges Nasa around $70m (£56m).