SpaceX, which is a private US rocket company has announced today that two citizens have paid to be sent around the moon. Although the journey isn’t until 2018, the two private citizens could start health and fitness testing as early as this year. The space pair have already paid a ‘significant deposit’ for their space adventure.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said the opportunity that has been presented to the two individuals is something that has been done for the “first time in 45 years”, as the pair will enter deep space. They will travel “faster and further into the solar system than any before them,” according to Musk.

Although the mission will not involve a lunar landing, Musk assures everyone that the pair “are entering this with their eyes open and they know that there is some risk here. They’re certainly not naive, and we’ll do anything to minimise that risk”. However, Musk has pointed out that the risk is not zero.

While everyone is scrambling to find out the identities of the two passengers, Musk has assured that they know each other and that “it’s nobody from Hollywood”.

“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.”

The journey around the moon will take a week. The vessel will get near the moon’s surface without landing on it before coming back down to Earth. In total, the journey would be 300,000 to 400,000 miles into space, which is farther than anyone has gone before.

SpaceX is on a race to beat NASA into space on this journey, although it wouldn’t of been possible without the agency’s co-operation in the first place. Everyone is in a rush to get into space, and although we know what happens in space if we go into it unprotected, we don’t really know much else.