Steve Aoki, Kpop star T.O.P to fly around moon with Japanese billionaire

The ten individuals Maezawa picked — together with two backup crew members — had been chosen from 1 million applicants, he mentioned. Their seats had been paid for by Maezawa, whose internet price stood at $1.7 billion as of Friday, in response to Forbes.

The crew will use a reusable launch car developed by SpaceX, the American firm based by Musk that has expanded civilian use of space. The ship is not going to land on the moon, however fly around it earlier than returning to Earth. Your complete journey is predicted to final just below six days.

Maezawa, like Musk, has a giant presence on Twitter. He holds the Guinness World Record for essentially the most retweeted put up and introduced the information on the social media platform. Within the Jan. 2019 tweet, Maezawa provided to provide 1 million Japanese yen, or about $9,000 on the time, to 100 individuals every, as an expression of thanks for “astonishing gross sales” at his enterprise. Individuals who needed to face an opportunity at incomes the prize needed to retweet the put up and comply with him.

Aoki and T.O.P are a part of a multinational forged that additionally features a British photographer, a Czech performer and an Indian actor. American Olympic snowboarder Kaitlyn Farrington was named among the many backup crew.

NASA’s Orion spacecraft flies by the moon, 81 miles above the surface

“Life is loopy,” Aoki mentioned in footage that depicted the second he was informed he had been chosen. “I’m gonna go to the … moon!”

Maezawa, who made his fortune by founding a Japanese on-line retailer, announced that he was heading to the moon exterior Area X’s Los Angeles headquarters in 2018. He mentioned then that he would choose as much as eight artists to hitch him on the journey, and expressed hope that the journey would cause them to create inspirational artwork.

On Friday, Maezawa repeated that hope as he introduced the crew, saying he was “excited to see what inspiring creations they give you in area.”

The billionaire additionally ran a contest in search of a “life accomplice” to hitch him on his moon journey, although Maezawa later canceled the competitors.

In April, SpaceX launched its first all-private mission to the Worldwide Area Station, with its three clients paying $55 million every. Final 12 months, Blue Origin, a SpaceX competitor owned by Bezos flew The Washington Publish proprietor, his brother and two others, setting a report for each the oldest and youngest particular person to fly to space.

Maezawa himself traveled to the Worldwide Area Station final 12 months with a cameraman and assistant, flying on a Soyuz spacecraft that launched from Kazakhstan. He posted videos of his keep in area on his YouTube channel. He played with a yo-yo, painted and flew a paper airplane whereas away from Earth.