Japanese Billionaire Yusaku Maezawa Announced as First SpaceX Passenger

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]SpaceX’s first commercial passenger will be Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, the company said Monday.

Maezawa intends to fly around the moon on SpaceX’s next generation BFR rocket. The trip is scheduled for 2023.

In February 2017, SpaceX said that two passengers would be flying around the moon in the company’s Crew Dragon capsule, launched by the Falcon Heavy rocket. But earlier this year, SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk said SpaceX was considering using BFR instead, which was confirmed this week.

Musk declined to disclose the price Maezawa paid for the mission other than it’s “a very significant amount of money.”

Maezawa, who made his fortune as the founder of online retailers Start Today and Zozotown, said he plans to invite six to eight artists to join him on the mission to the Moon, but hasn’t yet selected those artists.

Humans have not visited the moon since the 1972 Apollo mission.

Watch SpaceX’s livestream of the announcement below.[/vc_column_text][vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu7WJD8vpAQ” video_title=”1″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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