A Japanese billionaire has chosen his teammates for the first-ever artist-centric mission.
Yusaku Maezawa, who made his fortune as an online fashion retailer, announced the eight people who would fly with him on the dearMoon mission, which aims to use a SpaceX Starship to fly around the moon this year. next.
“I hope everyone recognizes the responsibility that comes with leaving Earth, traveling to the moon, and coming back,” Maezawa says in the video in Japanese, with a translation provided in the video.
The previously announced 2023 launch date could be pushed back significantly, however, as Starship has yet to be approved for orbital travel around Earth, let alone a flight to the moon.
The spacecraft has been grounded for more than 18 months as SpaceX awaits Federal Aviation Administration approval of environmental assessment requirements at its Starbase launch site in southern Texas.
Related: SpaceX’s Starship video animation is Tron meets Blade Runner in space
Riding with Maezawa will be:
- Steve Aoki, DJ, producer and electronic dance music artist with multiple Billboard-charting studio albums;
- Tim Dodd, YouTube creator of the “Everyday Astronaut” channel (Dodd has interviewed SpaceX founder Elon Musk several times on camera);
- Yemi AD, artist and choreographer known for his work with JAD Dance Company and with Ye (formerly Kanye West);
- Karim Iliya, photographer whose publications include National Geographic Magazine;
- Rhiannon Adam, a photographer who has been supported by the BBC/Royal Geographical Society and won several awards, according to their website (opens in a new tab);
- Brendan Hall, filmmaker on projects such as the two-hour documentary “Blood Sugar Rising” about diabetes in the United States, according to the Internet Movie Database (opens in a new tab);
- Dev Joshi, an “Indian television actor best known for portraying the role of Baal Veer in Sony Sab’s Baal Veer and Baalveer Returns”, according to Internet Movie Database (opens in a new tab);
- TOP, a South Korean rapper known as the leader of boy band Big Bang;
- Two alternate members: dancer Miyu and snowboarder Kaitlyn Farrington.
Each member of the dearMoon team was briefly quoted in a video (opens in a new tab) from YouTube channel dearMoon, and the announcement was confirmed on Dodd and Maezawa’s Twitter feed (opens in a new tab).
“I don’t know what this is going to do to me emotionally, and I guess that’s part of the ride,” Dodd says in the video.
Adam adds, “I expect this mission to bring many changes personally and professionally.”
The video also includes several views of Starship being tested, including at least one of the SpaceX system’s static lights.
Maezawa’s dearMoon project was announced in 2018 to get astronauts to the moon, following a controversial “girlfriend contest” for a now-defunct space mission. Maezawa bears the cost of seats for the crew.
When applications for DearMoon opened in August 2021, Maezawa did not specify the qualifications required to join the mission.
In December of the same year, the Japanese billionaire flew to the International Space Station for a short stay with his videographer, Yozo Hirano, and other Russian cosmonauts on a Soyuz spacecraft during launch and landing.
Starship has also been tasked with putting NASA astronauts on the moon on some Artemis program missions, and another billionaire (Dennis Tito) has reserved a seat in 2021 for him and his wife Akiko on a future flight around the moon, on a mission for which other people will be announced.
Elizabeth Howell is co-author of “Why am I taller (opens in a new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a book on space medicine. Follow her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in a new tab). Follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in a new tab) Where Facebook (opens in a new tab).
