Elon Musk Announces First Passenger on SpaceX Moon Flight

Published on: 2018/09/18 - in Science & Tech

SpaceX founder, CEO, and lead designer Elon Musk announced Monday that Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa will be flying around the moon on the next generation SpaceX rocket.

Musk – who resided in Kingston for two years while a student at Queen’s University – announced in February 2017 that SpaceX would be flying two passengers around the moon in a Falcon Heavy rocket launched Dragon crew capsule. But then stated earlier this year that SpaceX would instead use the upcoming, more powerful Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) to send a larger group of passengers to the moon.

Once they arrive, Maezawa and eight others will be the first people to return to the moon since the last Apollo mission in 1972. His trip is planned to launch in 2023.

Yusaku Maezawa is a Japanese entrepreneur and art collector who founded Start Today in 1998 and created the online fashion retail website Zozotown, now Japan’s largest, in 2004.

Watch the entire live-cast announcement on Youtube

Also check out these tweets from Elon Musk, SpaceX and Yusaku Maezawa:

 


Photo: SpaceX.com