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Japanese fashion mogul Yusaku Maezawa has unveiled the names of the eight passengers who will join him on a trip around the moon in a private rocket designed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
The most high-profile picks are American DJ Steve Aoki, South Korean K-pop star TOP and popular space YouTuber Tim Dodd, better known as the Everyday Astronaut.
The trip, named dearMoon, will mark the first civilian orbital expedition, said Mr Maezawa.
The Japanese fashion tycoon bought every seat on the maiden lunar voyage when it was first announced in 2018.
The 10 people who were picked, including two backup crew members, were selected from one million applicants, Mr Maezawa said.
He initially wanted to take a group of six to eight artists with him on the trip, but later expanded the definition of an “artist” to include people from all walks of life as long as they consider themselves as artists, he said last year.
The seats for all those flying are paid for by Mr Maezawa, whose net worth is estimated by Forbes at $1.7bn as of Friday.
The participants of the voyage will also include Czech multidisciplinary artist Yemi AD, Irish and British photographers Rhiannon Adam and Karim Iliya, and Indian TV actor Dev Joshi.
The backup crew will have US snowboarder Kaitlyn Farrington and Japanese dancer Miyu.
TOP, the stage name of Choi Seung Hyun who broke out with the K-pop group Big Bang, said: “I feel great pride and responsibility in becoming the first Korean civilian going to the moon.”
The mission will take place in 2024 through the SpaceX rocket and spacecraft system Starship. Its development is reportedly delayed and it is yet to conduct its first orbital test flight.
The mission on the Starship is scheduled to take eight days from launch to return. It would circle the moon for three days, coming within 200km from the lunar surface.
US regulators are yet to give permission for the much-advertised trip to the moon. The ship remains grounded in Texas for the past 18 months after it completed a test launch in May 2021.
“I hope each and everyone will recognise the responsibility that comes with leaving the Earth, travelling to the moon and back,” Mr Maezawa said.
“They will gain a lot from this experience and I hope they will use that to contribute to the planet, to humanity.”
The domain of space travel that has long been pursued by nation states has become a reality for the private sector in recent years, with billionaires such as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Tesla’s Mr Musk heavily investing in space-related projects and making such trips a reality for wealthy civilians.
In July this year, Mr Bezos, who founded the Aerospace company Blue Origin, shot himself into space onboard a rocket, becoming the first billionaire to take himself to space.
Mr Maezawa, who made a fortune founding the online fashion retailer Zozo, will take a second trip outside Earth after he went onboard a Russian rocket to the International Space Station last year.
He also shares a flare for promotion and an infatuation with Twitter and Mr Musk. He holds a Guinness world record for the most retweeted post after offering a cash prize of 1 million yen ($7,300) to 100 winners for retweeting it.
In 2020, he launched a “matchmaking documentary” called Full Moon Lovers to search for a new girlfriend who would join him on his SpaceX flight, but cancelled the hunt due to “mixed feelings”.
