3 people are going to the moon — here's how a private company will pull off ​the historic mission

Only 24 people in the history of Earth have made the 239,000-mile trip to the Moon, but a company based out of Virginia plans to change that.

With a Russian cosmonaut behind the controls, a company called Space Adventures hopes to fly two private citizens around the Moon and back by the end of the decade. Though it has shifted its timetable slightly from its original launch target of 2018, the company already has two passengers who reserved their seats for $150 million a piece.

"We've got a couple of clients under contract for our lunar mission," says Tom Shelley, the president of Space Adventures. "That's taking up the majority of our time, working with our partners in Russia."

Right now, Shelley says his company is working out all the logistics. But he did offer some details as to what his as-yet-unnamed clients will be doing on their trip.

Here's what the crew will experience aboard the first lunar mission in about 45 years.

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