TOKYO – A group of artists, athletes and entertainers, including DJ Steve Aoki, are slated to join Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa on a private SpaceX flight around the moon as soon as 2023.
The unorthodox crew was announced in a video posted online Thursday by Mr Maezawa, who said in 2021 that he wanted to include “people from all kinds of backgrounds”.
The group also includes South Korean rapper T.O.P, space YouTuber Tim Dodd, actor Dev Joshi and photographer Karim Iliya, along with snowboarder Kaitlyn Farrington and dancer Miyu as backups.
“I hope each and every one will recognise the responsibility that comes with leaving the Earth, traveling to the Moon and back,” Mr Maezawa said in the video. “They will gain a lot from this experience, and I hope they will use that to contribute to the planet, to humanity.”
Mr Maezawa in 2018 put down a deposit for a flight on what would later be known as Starship, SpaceX’s most powerful next-generation launch vehicle.
The founder and former chief executive of online fashion retailer Zozo dubbed the project “dearMoon”, and in 2021 solicited video applications from hopefuls seeking to join him on the round-the-moon mission.
According to a mission profile graphic on the dearMoon website, the round trip would last almost six days and circumnavigate the Moon without landing.
While SpaceX said the flight could be held as early as 2023, Starship remains behind schedule and has yet to launch to orbit.
SpaceX, whose formal name is Space Exploration Technologies, recently targeted as early as December for the vehicle’s first test flight to orbit.
Mr Maezawa has already been to space. In December 2021, the billionaire flew to the International Space Station (ISS) on a Russian Soyuz rocket, after coordinating with a space tourism company called Space Adventures. He lived on the ISS for a little less than two weeks.
He reportedly paid 10 billion yen (S$99 million) for that out-of-this-world excursion.
Like fellow billionaire and SpaceX owner Elon Musk, the 47-year-old Mr Maezawa has a flare for promotion and an infatuation with Twitter. He has boasted holding the Guinness world record for the most retweeted post, when he offered a cash prize of 1 million yen to 100 winners for retweeting it. BLOOMBERG
