TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa on Wednesday launched a search for eight people to join him as the first private passenger on a trip around the month with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
He had originally planned to invite artists for the one-week trip scheduled for 2023.
The rejected project will “give more people around the world the chance to join this journey. If you see yourself as an artist, then you are an artist, ”said Maezawa.
The first stage of the registration process runs until March 14.
The entrepreneur, who sold his online fashion business Zozo Inc to SoftBank in 2019, pays the full cost of the trip with SpaceX’s next-generation reusable launch vehicle, dubbed Starship.
Two recent prototypes exploded during testing, highlighting the risks to 45-year-old Maezawa and his fellow passengers, who also have to contend with space travel in their first private journey beyond Earth’s orbit.
“This mission that we expect humans to take forward than any human has ever left planet Earth,” Musk said, days after SpaceX completed its latest $ 850 million fundraiser. , which helped transform the businessman into one of the richest people in the world.
Maezawa is known for his art and supercar collections and for the gifts that made him the most followed Twitter account in Japan.
Last year, he launched a short documentary search for a new girlfriend to join him on the trip before retiring, citing “mixed feelings.”
Reporting by Sam Nussey; Editing by Gerry Doyle