This is ridiculous
They haven't ever launched anything out of Earth's orbit, they have no experience handling the radiation found there. I'm sure Musk is willing to wave it away, but I should think that they need to run an UNMANNED mission to loop around the Moon and verify everything actually works before sticking people in there. Just because people are willing to take the risk doesn't mean the FAA will permit it.
If I design a big cannon to shoot people across a football field into a big net, and I find a couple people willing to sign a waiver and chance it, should I be allowed to do so, without ever testing even once that everything works as designed?
NASA has already had more than one mission where having actual people piloting the craft made the difference between mission failure/death, and mission success or at least avoiding loss of life. I think there's two reasons his mission has no pilot. 1) he doesn't have anyone qualified to pilot it and 2) he'll use the publicity to help sell self-driving Teslas down the road "we managed to have a self driving vehicle go around the Moon and back, so you don't need to worry about your car driving you across town".
Biting the hand that feeds IT
