SpaceX announces second private flight to the Moon aboard Starship

Enlarge / Akiko and Dennis Tito are customers of SpaceX's second circumlunar mission aboard Starship. SpaceX

More than two decades have passed since entrepreneur Dennis Tito became the first person to pay for his own space trip, spending a week on the International Space Station.

After this pioneering mission aboard a Soyuz vehicle, Tito said he had always wanted to return to space, with a preference for flying to the Moon. But that thought mostly lay dormant, as Tito had no confidence in any of the space vehicles available for such a mission.

That changed about a year and a half ago when he and his wife, Akiko Tito, visited SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California. After a visit, they discussed possible space tourism trips, and it didn't take long for the lunar idea to pop up. Would Tito be interested in boarding SpaceX's Starship vehicle for a flight around the Moon?

"We looked at each other and knew straight away," Dennis Tito said this week, during an interview with Ars alongside his wife.

"I said yes, I want to go," added Akiko Tito. "We both wanted to go."

Three missions and counting

The Titos announced on Wednesday that they had purchased two of the twelve seats on the second of SpaceX's planned circumlunar flights later this decade. With the public announcement, Akiko Tito becomes the first woman confirmed to fly on Starship. The flight will last about a week, go to the Moon, pass about 40 km from the surface and return. Ten other seats on Starship remain unsold and are available. Tito said he was not free to disclose the price he paid.

This brings the number of private manned spaceflights on Starship and its Super Heavy rocket to three. There's billionaire Jared Isaacman's Polaris III mission, likely in low Earth orbit, which will be followed by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa's "dearMoon" flight, the first human flight around the Moon. Then comes Tito and the second circumlunar mission.

SpaceX has also contracted with NASA to perform the first human landing on the Moon as part of the Artemis program, but for now NASA astronauts will launch on a separate rocket and meet with Starship in lunar orbit to descend to moon surface and return to orbit. So far, NASA has not announced plans to launch astronauts from Earth on Starship or land them here.

Waiting on Starship

The timing of all these missions depends on the development of the Starship vehicle, which could make its first orbital test flight in the coming months from southern Texas. After that, the large, fully reusable launch system will perform dozens of uncrewed missions, mostly carrying Starlink payloads, before humans board. This is because Starship will perform a propelling landing on Earth - something no crew vehicle has ever done - and has no backup in case of a failed landing.

Tito, who just turned 82, said he was ready to wait. After signing a contract in the summer of 2021, he and Akiko underwent two days of physiological testing and a third day of cognitive testing. "They looked at everything that could be a problem, and it turned out there was no problem," he said. "We both passed with flying colors."

He acknowledged that age could be a factor. Star Trek actor William Shatner holds the record for being the oldest person in space, flying on Blue Origin's New Shepard flight last October at the age of 90 year. However, it was only a short 10-minute suborbital jump. Former NASA astronaut John Glenn remains the oldest person to enter orbit, spending more than nine days aboard the space shuttle at the age of 77 in 1998.

Given the amount of development work ahead of it, Starship is unlikely to be ready for crewed circumlunar travel before 2025, and that date will likely slip later in the decade. "My personal timeline is that we're willing to wait as long as we're healthy," Tito said. "We can't force the timeline. It will happen when it happens."

Tito's announcement came during a visit to SpaceX's Starbase facility in South Texas, where the company is assembling Starship prototypes and testing the vehicles. Tito said he was following development progress on YouTube and called the launch and test facilities "incredible".

"Nothing happened"