A Japanese tycoon cancels flying to the Moon with Starship due to its delay

June 3 () –

Six years after announcing a flight around the Moon with a crew of artists on SpaceX’s Starship rocket, the Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa cancel the project.

In a series of posts to your account on XMaezawa said he signed his contract with SpaceX based on the assumption that his mission, named dearMoonwould be launched at the end of 2023. But Elon Musk’s megarocket project has so far not gone beyond a non-return orbital flight test.

“It’s a development project, so it is what it is, but there’s no word yet on when Starship might launch,” he wrote. “I can’t plan my future in this situation and I feel terrible for making crew members wait longer, hence the difficult decision to cancel at this time. “I apologize to those who were excited for this project to become a reality.”

After a selection process that attracted more than one million applicants, Maezawa named eight artists and communicatorsplus two alternates, for the crew at the end of 2022.

The people chosen were Steve Aoki, well-known DJ; Tim Dodd, an American YouTuber; Czech artist Yemi AD; Rhiannon Adam, Irish photographer; British photographer Karim Iliya; the American filmmaker Brendan Hall; Indian actor Dev Joshi, and K-pop musician TOP from South Korea.

Maezawa made his fortune by starting what would become Zozo, Japan’s largest online clothing store. He sold most of his stake in the company to Yahoo Japan in 2019 for about $2.3 billion. In 2021 he paid a estimated ticket of 80 million dollars for a trip to the International Space Station.