Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese billionaire, announced eight crew mates on Thursday who will accompany him on a trip around the Moon planned for 2023 on a SpaceX rocket that is still in development.
The dearMoon mission was first announced in 2018. Maezawa initially stated that he would invite a crew of six to eight artists, but eventually revised the admission rules to internet competition.
The eight people picked were American DJ and producer Steve Aoki, American YouTuber Tim Dodd, Czech artist Yemi AD, Irish photographer Rhiannon Adam, British photographer Karim Iliya, American filmmaker Brendan Hall, Indian actor Dev Joshi, and South Korean K-pop band TOP.
There were also two backup crew members: American snowboarder Kaitlyn Farrington and Japanese dancer Miyu.
“I hope that everyone recognizes the responsibility that comes with leaving Earth, traveling to the Moon, and returning,” Maezawa stated in a YouTube announcement video.
“They’ll learn a lot from this experience, and I hope they’ll utilize it to save the world and humanity.”
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The round voyage would spend nearly six days and circumnavigate the Moon without landing, according to a mission profile graphic on the dear moon website.
SpaceX’s Starship, when finished, will be the most powerful rocket ever built.
Although its upper stage has successfully completed test flights within the atmosphere and landed, SpaceX has yet to conduct an orbital test flight, which founder Elon Musk has frequently claimed will occur by the end of 2022.
Maezawa, the billionaire entrepreneur of Japan’s largest online fashion boutique, paid an estimated 10 billion yen ($73 million at current exchange rates) to fly to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz rocket last year.
