Japanese billionaire invites 8 people to join the SpaceX mission around the moon

Japanese billionaire invites 8 people to join the SpaceX mission around the moon

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Maezawa also said he decided to expand his definition of ‘artist’, which he initially defined as singers, dancers, painters and other traditional creative fields. Now he can include people from all walks of life as long as they consider themselves artists, Maezawa said in a video announcement on Tuesday.

Maezawa’s invitation to the public to join his Starship mission comes as another billionaire, Shift4 payment platform CEO Jared Isaacman, is looking for a member of the public to join him in a make a turn aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft. This mission is planned for later this year and is aimed at raising money for the St.

The website for ‘Dear Moon’, the name of Maezawa for its space mission, now contains a link where applicants can register until March 14 in advance. The first performances of the candidates start on 21 March.

There will be two main criteria for selection: Applicants must try to push the envelope into their field of work by going to space “to help other people and the larger society in some way”, and they must be willing to help their to support. crew members during the trip.

The eight candidates selected from the public will join Maezawa, who pays for the trip and says he will take his passengers for free, and at least one other person. It is not yet clear who will claim the other seats, although Maezawa said last year that he was looking for a ‘partner’ to travel with him. There will be a total of 10 to 12 passengers, Maezawa said.

Why a Japanese billionaire wants to send artists to the moon
“While feelings of loneliness and emptiness are slowly increasing in me, there is one thing I think about: continuing to love one woman,” he wrote in an online appeal last year.

The Dear Moon mission will depend on SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket, which is still in the early stages of development at the company’s test facilities in South Texas. Although some early prototypes did short “hop tests”, some of which flew a few kilometers above the earth, a full-scale prototype has yet to be built. SpaceX has also not begun testing the Super Heavy, a huge rocket launcher needed to propel the Starship to Earth’s orbit.

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, said in a recent interview with podcast presenter Joe Rogan that he expects Starship to fly regularly by 2023, although it is not clear whether SpaceX will meet the deadline. The aviation industry is notorious for projects that take much longer – and much higher expenses – than first expected.

If the mission is successful, the crew of Maezawa will be the first group of private citizens to orbit beyond a low earth. Musk said in a video on Tuesday that the journey could also go beyond any of the Apollo missions that NASA did in the 20th century.

The six-day mission is expected to take three days to reach the destination and a slingshot trip around the Moon before returning home.

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