Billion Japanese entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa will speak at SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California.
Michael Sheetz | CNBC
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa announced Tuesday that he will select eight members of the public to join him on his orbit around the moon, which is expected to fly the Starship SpaceX rocket in 2023.
“I invite you to join me on this mission,” Maezawa said in a video.
Maezawa, who announced the mission in September 2018 with SpaceX founder Elon Musk, said the plan has evolved from flying artists on a trip to a lunar orbit.
His project, called dearMoon, will now fly “10 to 12 people in total,” with eight of the team coming from members of the public that Maezawa intends to select.
The billionaire says he will pay “for the whole trip,” so those who join him will fly for free. DearMoon’s mission will take three days to fly to the moon, “bend behind,” and then spend three days returning, he said.
There are two “key criteria” for anyone applying for a Maezawa flight: First, that a potential passenger “whatever activity” they are in can “by going into space. “
“By going into space could you do something that is even better, even bigger?” Maezawa asked.
Second, the eight astronauts who want to “need to be willing and able to support other members of the crew who have the same goals,” he said.
Starship Protocol SN9 launches from the company’s development facility in Boca Chica, Texas.
SpaceX
It’s been nearly two and a half years since Maezawa made his original dearMoon announcement and the project has stuck to the 2023 goal of launching the mission.
In the meantime, SpaceX has continued to work on the development of Starship. The rocket represents the next generation vehicle that is fundamental to Musk’s dream of space exploration.
Musk aims to completely re-use Starship – not just the elevation, which is the lower part of the rocket – by landing and relaunching in a more machine-like manner. commercial air.
SpaceX has yet to reach orbit with the Starship rocket, but is rapidly building and testing prototypes at its facility in Boca Chica, Texas. The company has successfully launched several Starship prototypes, landing them safely after short flights to about 500 feet in height.
His two most recent high-altitude planes, despite passing many development milestones, exploded on impact as an attempt was made to land.
SpaceX has not said how much it has spent on the Starship program so far, but Musk previously estimated that it expects to cost the company around $ 5 billion to complete.
In particular, SpaceX ‘s valuation has gone up since Maezawa’ s first release, from around $ 25 billion at the time to about $ 74 billion last month.
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