Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa on Friday named South Korean rapper T.O.P and DJ Steve Aoki among the many eight artists and entertainers who will be part of him on a personal SpaceX journey across the moon as early as subsequent yr.
Maezawa, a 47-year-old entrepreneur also called MZ, has purchased each seat on the voyage, the primary of its variety by the Elon Musk-owned firm. It follows Maezawa’s 12-day journey to the Worldwide Area Station on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft final yr.
Along with T.O.P — also called Choi Seung Hyun, a former member of the Okay-pop group Massive Bang — and Aoki, a Japanese-American musician, different crew members for what Maezawa calls the dearMoon Challenge embody Indian actor Dev Joshi and American area YouTuber Tim Dodd.
“I genuinely nonetheless can’t imagine it. It nonetheless hasn’t even sunk in but — and I’ve identified for fairly awhile,” Dodd stated in a video posted after the announcement.
U.S. Olympic snowboarder Kaitlyn Farrington and Japanese dancer Miyu might be backup crew members for the journey, which has been years within the making.
“I hope every one will acknowledge the duty that comes with leaving the Earth, touring to the moon and again,” Maezawa stated in a video posted on his YouTube channel. “They’ll achieve rather a lot from this expertise, and I hope they’ll use that to contribute to the planet, to humanity.”
Maezawa, who based the Japanese style retailer Zozo, has a style for social media theatrics, providing money prizes prior to now in alternate for retweets. In 2020, he marketed on Twitter for a romantic accomplice to affix him on the SpaceX lunar flight earlier than calling off the search weeks later.
In a recruitment announcement in March 2021, Maezawa stated he wished “individuals from every kind of backgrounds” to affix him on the journey across the moon. He stated a million individuals had utilized.
The eight-day mission aboard SpaceX’s Starship automobile contains three days circling the moon, coming inside about 125 miles of the floor. The flight was initially scheduled for 2023 however has confronted testing delays.
