YUSAKU MAEZAWA TO BE SPACEX’S FIRST MOON TRAVELLER

A Japanese billionaire and online fashion tycoon, Yusaku Maezawa, will be the first man to fly on a monster SpaceX rocket around theMoon as early as 2023, and he plans to bring six to eight artists along.

Maezawa, 42, will be the first lunar traveller since the last US Apollo mission in 1972. He paid an unspecified amount of money for the privilege.

“Since I was a kid, I have loved theMoon,” Maezawa said at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, late Monday. “This is my lifelong dream.” Maezawa is chief executive of Japan’s largest online fashion mall, and is the 18th richest person in Japan with a fortune of $3 billion, according to the business magazine Forbes. Maezawa’s other hobby is amassing valuable works of modern art and last year, he announced the acquisition of a Jean-Michel Basquiat masterpiece worth $110.5 million.

His love of art led him to decide to invite artists to come along for the trip, he said. “I would like to invite 6-8 artists from around the world to join me on this mission to the Moon,” Maezawa said.

“Theywillbeaskedtocreate something after they return to Earth. These masterpieces will inspire the dreamer within all of us.” Until now, Americans are the only ones who have left Earth’s orbit. A total of 24 NASA astronauts voyaged to the Moon during the Apollo era of the 1960s and 1970s.