Earlier, SpaceX founder Elon Musk marked another historical feat in his growing list of SpaceX achievements by announcing the name of the passenger who booked a ticket to hitch a ride on a newly launched SpaceX rocket design.
The rocket was named the Big Falcon Rocket (BFR), an upgrade to the design of the current Falcon Heavy rocket family. The passenger, Musk announced, will be the first to ride on the BFR as it aims to become the 25th rocket to book a trip to the Moon and back. Wired announced that the new rocket design will be put to the test in the company's "BFR Lunar Mission."
Space covered the announcement and it was revealed that the mystery passenger is Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. He will fly to the moon on the BFR, along with six to eight artists. The event has been dubbed a big night for commercial space flight. It would benefit not only SpaceX but also competitors Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic.
The two companies, competing for a prime piece of the commercial spaceflight pie, have plans of their own. Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are looking to bring passengers on a suborbital trip to space, with each ticket costing passengers $200,000 dollars. There are also planned trips to the International Space Station, but it will cost passengers a hefty $35 million just for the chance to step into the ISS. Due to the sheer distance involved, SpaceX's lunar flight is expected to cost the Japanese millionaire more.
Elon Musk teased the announcement on Twitter by releasing previously unseen prototype pictures of the BFR. The BFR appeared to have a different design from the Falcon family, featuring three huge fins on the crewed spaceship, as well as a heat shield mounted on the belly area. Musk said that it will also have a "forward moving wing" deployed near the tip of the spacecraft.
SpaceX has certainly kept busy since it last announced what could potentially be its first lunar commercial flight. Musk was on the news in 2017 as he announced that SpaceX would be taking two private astronauts on a trip around the moon. However, that lunar flight will be accomplished using the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, in contrast to Maezawa's BFR mission.
With the BFR still in the design and testing stages, it's clear that Maezawa's lunar flight won't be happening any time soon. People will have to wait and see as the BFR is being built and being readied for tests before watching Maezawa fly to the moon.
