SpaceX to send Billionaire Yusaku Maezawa on First Private Voyage to the Moon

After sending Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken on the first manned flight of the Falcon 9 on May 30, SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk revealed the first private customer to ride around the Moon in his project called Dear Moon on SpaceX's future massive rocket, the Big Falcon Rocket (BFR). On September 17, 2018, SpaceX announced fashion innovator and globally recognized art curator Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese billionaire and founder of Zozotown, will be SpaceX's first private passenger to fly around the Moon in 2023 after successful Falcon 9 voyage.

This first private lunar passenger flight, featuring a fly-by of the Moon as part of a week-long mission, will help fund development of SpaceX’s Starship and Super Heavy. It will be an important step in enabling access for everyday people who dream of flying to space. You can watch Elon Musk announcing the details about first private space voyage around the Moon in following video:

Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese retail entrepreneur and art collector’s first words were “I choose to go to the moon.” Standing in front of a small crowd in SpaceX’s corporate office, he announced that he wants artists of different background and specialities - director, painter, dancer, novelist, musician, fashion designer, sculptor, photographer, and architect, to accompany him to the moon. He is yet to select the invitees on the trip which will take about a week.

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The Japanese billionaire, Yusaku Maezawa said,
“ I would like to invite six to eight artists from around the world to join me on this mission to the Moon. These artists will be asked to create something after they return to Earth, and these masterpieces will inspire the dreamer within all of us.”
Maezawa didn’t comment on how much he paid but said that the trip will be free for the artists accompanying him. According to Forbes, Yusaku Maezawa is the 18th-richest person, with a net worth estimated at $2.7 billion, in Japan and the head of the e-commerce company Start Today, which is worth $12 billion.  Earlier this July Maezawa’s Zozotown unveiled its first in-house line of clothes in 72 countries, including the US.

The estimated cost of the BFR is around $5 billion and SpaceX have heaps of work to complete before the aspiration can be materialized. “We have to set some kind of date. If everything goes 100 percent right, then this is the date. But there are many uncertainties,” Elon Musk said.

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The SpaceX’s latest variation of the BFR has the payload capacity to Earth orbit of at least 100,000 kg which makes it a super-heavy-lift launch vehicle.
Elon Musk has always been outspoken about his aspiration for human beings to colonize Mars. The idea was conceived by the conceptualization of Mars Oasis, a project to land miniature versions of experimental greenhouse and grow plants on Mars in a bid to make the planet habitable.