The biggest stumbling block appears to be money, which is in someways a surprise, since we’ve all believed that there were many technical issues that have kept us from going. Of course that would be for a NASA-led mission, and NASA has less tolerance for risk, and in any case would be attempting something a little more ambitious than just a flyby.

But I guess this shows the difference between what NASA thinks is needed and what, in business terms, “the market will bear”. If Tito is able to find enough funding, then it will show that the tolerance for risk vs reward is as high for those wanting adventure in space as it is here on Earth. Not that NASA needs to follow suit, since that’s not really their mission. But it will show that American’s continue to support risk, which is something that NASA has been trying to avoid more and more, and Congress is not helping.

Hard to see how they’ll be able to afford to do this mission without using the low cost Falcon Heavy, but I wonder if their options for capsules could include the composite version of the Orion that ATK was showing off for their Liberty system? Buy a MPCV heatshield for it, and finish it off just enough to be that low-tech lifeboat that they need. Launch it on a Falcon Heavy (with no LAS), then launch the crew on a Falcon 9/Dragon (with an engineer to fix any last minute issues). Lots of different options, but the simplest would be if they go with a Dragon and Falcon Heavy. Guess we’ll have to hear what Elon thinks.