Japanese Billionaire Yusaku Maezawa Is The First To Book A Ticket For SpaceX’s Moon Flight

Almost everybody dreams of reaching the Moon one day. Well, the dream is soon going to turn into reality for Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. The Elon Musk led space transportation company, SpaceX, announced on Monday that Maezawa will be its first space tourist.

“Finally I can tell you that ‘I choose to go to the moon,’” Maezawa said, echoing a line from a famous speech by President John F. Kennedy.

Maezawa is the founder and chief executive of online fashion retailer Zozo. Forbes has ranked him as the 18th richest person in Japan. His net worth is estimated at $2.9 billion.

He has reportedly chartered a flight aboard the company’s Big Falcon Rocket, which is still in development stage, for a voyage around the Moon as soon as 2023.

Maezawa announced that he is planning to take six to eight artists with him on the mission that too free of charge. He said he wants his guests “to see the moon up close, and the Earth in full view, and create work to reflect their experience.”

Notably, neither Space X nor Maezawa revealed the price of the ticket. However, Musk did say that Maezawa was the one brought the idea to him.  He added that money put in by the Japanese billionaire’s money will help fund development of the super heavy-lift launch vehicle, Big Falcon Rocket, or BFR, which the company plans to use for the lunar flight. The cost of developing the BFR is estimated at about $5 billion.

“He’s a very brave person to do this,” Musk said of the Japanese entrepreneur.

As space flights have a lot of risks attached, Maezawa is expected to undergo a lot of training for the Moon trip. He told Reuters that no training plans have been scheduled yet.

“SpaceX is going to be doing many, many test flights to ensure safety and we will wait for that to happen before we go,” Maezawa said.