Yes, sometimes even Elon Musk can’t make his dreams a reality…at least for a while. Musk has put on hold his original plans to take two paying space tourists around the moon and back to Earth by the end of 2018. Wonder if the two unnamed passengers get a refund?
Over the weekend, company spokesman James Gleeson confirmed the private moon launch has been postponed, without indicating when it might occur. “SpaceX is still planning to fly private individuals around the moon and there is growing interest from many customers,” he said in an email.The delay comes amid SpaceX’s own projections of a nearly 40% drop in launches next year from as many as 28 anticipated for all of 2018. The decline primarily reflects a continuing global slump in manufacturing orders and launch contracts for large commercial satellites.“SpaceX faces much higher stakes” than carrying paying passengers as soon as it envisioned, according to Charles Miller, a consultant and space entrepreneur who served on President Donald Trump’s transition team for NASA. “Company leaders can’t risk” sacrificing the agency’s trust or “prompting hearings before Congress” if there is a catastrophic problem on a private mission, he said in an interview. – The Wall Street Journal
Featured image by NASA/SpaceX
