Russian and Chinese companies are also working on space tourism plans
A
Japanese billionaire and online fashion tycoon, Yusaku
Maezawa, will be the first man to fly on a monster SpaceX rocket
around the Moon as early as 2023, and he plans to bring six to eight
artists along.
Maezawa,
42, will be the first lunar traveller since the last US Apollo
mission in 1972. He paid an unspecified amount of money for the
privilege.
"Ever
since I was a kid, I have loved the Moon," Maezawa said at
SpaceX headquarters and rocket factory in Hawthorne, California, in
the middle of metropolitan Los Angeles, late Monday.
"This
is my lifelong dream."
Maezawa
is chief executive of Japan's largest online fashion mall, and is the
18th richest person in Japan with a fortune of $3 billion, according
to the business magazine Forbes.
Maezawa's
other hobby is amassing valuable works of modern art and last year,
he announced the acquisition of a Jean-Michel Basquiat masterpiece
worth $110.5 million.
His
love of art led him to decide to invite artists to come along for the
trip, he said.
"I
would like to invite six to eight artists from around the world to
join me on this mission to the Moon," Maezawa said.
"They
will be asked to create something after they return to Earth. These
masterpieces will inspire the dreamer within all of us." Until
now, Americans are the only ones who have left Earth's orbit.
A total
of 24 NASA astronauts -- all white men -- voyaged to the Moon during
the Apollo era of the 1960s and '70s. Twelve walked on the lunar
surface.
The
first space tourist was Dennis Tito, an American businessman who in
2001 paid some $20 million to fly on a Russian spaceship to the
International Space Station.
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