Fly me to the moon!
Japanese mogul is SpaceX’s first tourist
Meet Yusaku Maezawa, the Japanese billionaire who is set to become the first-ever private tourist to fly around the moon.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk revealed Maezawa to the world on Monday as the person picked to take the historic trip on a rocket sent up by the space-travel company.
“I’d like to introduce the first paying customer,” Musk said before bringing out Maezawa, 42, at a livestreamed company event outside Los Angeles.
Maezawa proclaimed, “Finally, I can tell you that I choose to go to the moon!
“I’m really excited, really honored. Ever since I was a kid, I have loved the moon. It’s always there and continues to inspire humanity,” said the magnate, who plans to bring a group of artists along.g
Maezawa, who headseads Japan’s largest online clothingthing re-retailer, Zozotown, willll be the first person to embarkark on a lunar mission sincee 1972, when the last Apollolo mis-mission was completed.
Only 24 humans have made the trip to the moon.
Musk has not revealedealed how much the Lunar BFRR Mission, slated for 2023, willll cost, but Maezawa surelyly won’t have a hard time footing the bill. He’s worth $2.9 billion and has been known to drop unfathomable amounts of money on art. Maezawa didn’t identify the arttiststists whowho will joijoin him on his star trek, saysaying only, “I choose to go to the moon with artistsartists. In 2023, as the host, I wwould like to invite six to eight artists from arounaround the world to join me on this missionsion to thethe mmoon.” Maezawa has gained attention for twice shellc shelling cord out sums re- for a work by Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Of Maezawa’s space-trip fare, Musk said, “He’s paying a very significant amount of money.”
Maezawa, a former rock drummer and the unmarried father of three, will make the voyage in a Big Falcon Rocket, which SpaceX calls “the most powerful rocket in history, capable of carrying humans to the moon, Mars and beyond.” The trip will take several days. While Musk has insisted the spacecraft is safe, he warned Monday that there “are some chances things could go wrong.”
“To be clear,” Musk added, “this is dangerous.”