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Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa on Friday (9 November) announced the crew who would join him on a private SpaceX flight around the moon.
The eight-member crew comprises artists, athletes and entertainers, including K-Pop star TOP, YouTuber Tim Dodd, and Indian actor Dev Joshi among others.
Maezawa revealed his pick for the ‘dearMoon’ project, a flyby around the moon, in a video.
“I hope each and everyone will recognize the responsibility that comes with leaving the Earth, travelling to the moon and back,” the tycoon said in Japanese.
He plans to undertake the trip to the moon, along with the crew, as soon as next year. The proposed lunar voyage would take eight days from launch to return.
As per Associated Press (AP), the Starship vehicle would come within 200 kilometers of the lunar surface while circling it for three days.
Who is Yusaku Maezawa? Who are the crew members selected for the ‘dearMoon’ project? We explain.
Yusaku Maezawa
Yusaku Maezawa founded Japan’s largest online fashion mall, Zozotown, in 2004.
In 1998, he had started the company Start Today and began selling rare CDs and records by mail from his home.
In September 2019, the Japanese entrepreneur declared he was resigning as CEO of the e-commerce company Zozo Inc. and sold most of his stake to Yahoo Japan.
Japan’s Yusaku Maezawa is the founder of Zozotown. AP File Photo
A year before, Forbes had named him the 18th richest man in Japan with a personal wealth of $2.9 billion.
Last year, Maezawa and his producer Yozo Hirano had flown to International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz rocket for 12 days.
dearMoon project
The 47-year-old tycoon, who is also a collector of art, announced the dearMoon mission in 2018.
Maezawa earlier said he plans to take a group of artists with him on a six-day lunar expedition but later announced he has widened his definition of an artist.
He said in a video that he “will give people from around the globe the chance to join this journey” as long as they consider themselves artists.
In 2018, the fashion mogul was named the first private passenger who would be taken to a trip around the moon by Elon Musk-owned SpaceX’s Starship rocket.
Maezawa had then said he would sponsor the cost of eight other passengers who will travel with him.
The billionaire has paid an undisclosed amount for this trip aboard the Starship spacecraft.
Even though Maezawa plans to commence the lunar trip next year, the journey might be delayed.
Notably, Starship has not yet been approved for an orbital journey around the Earth, let alone the moon. The ship has been grounded for the past 18 months in Texas, as per BBC.
ALSO READ: With Vikram-S, India joins the ‘private rocket’ club: Which other countries have achieved this feat?
Meet the ‘dearMoon’ crew
Baal Veer fame actor Dev Joshi is among the eight-member crew that would accompany Maezawa.
In 2019, Joshi was awarded Pradhanmantri Rashtriya Bal Shakti Puraskar by the then President Ram Nath Kovind for “exceptional achievements in arts and culture”.
Shedding light on his trip to the moon on Instagram, the child actor said it was a “dream come true”.
“I can’t express myself in words, but the feeling is beyond anything…..I am proud to be part of such an extraordinary, unbelievable, once-in-a-lifetime project of #dearMoon,” he wrote in his post.
“Life has always suprised me with new opportunities & this is the biggest one I can ever think of!” the Baalveer Returns actor added.
The 22-year-old is currently purring a Master’s in International Affairs and Diplomacy from the United Nations Institute of Training and Research, dearMoon’s YouTube channel said.
TOP, whose real name is Choi Seung-hyun, is a South Korean rapper.
The 35-year-old had made his debut as a lead rapper for the K-Pop group Big Bang, one of the world’s top boy bands.
In a video released by the dearMoon website, TOP said he has always fantasized about space and the moon since childhood.
“When I finally see the moon closer I look forward to my personal growth and returning to the earth as an artist with inspiration,” he said, as per AP.
American DJ Steve Aoki is a producer and electronic dance music artist. In 2012, Pollstar named him the highest-grossing dance artist in North America from tours, as per IMDb.
His first solo album, Wonderland, was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Dance/Electronica Album in 2013.
Aoki has released many Billboard-charting studio albums, says IMDb. He has also collaborated with many artists, including BTS, Maluma, Snoop Dogg, Linkin Park and more.
Tim Dodd is the YouTube creator of the ‘Everyday Astronaut’ channel.
The American YouTuber has 1.4 million followers for his “educational videos on spaceflight and astrophysics” says BBC. He has also interviewed Musk several times on video.
Dodd said in a video that SpaceX’s announcement in 2017 that it would send a civilian to the moon was “ironically, or poetically… actually what got me started making videos on YouTube”.
Irish photographer Rhiannon Adam says her work is “influenced by her nomadic childhood spent at sea, sailing around the world with her parents”.
According to her website, she won the Meitar Award for Excellence in Photography in 2020 and The Photographers’ Gallery’s New Talents in 2019.
Her work has been published globally including in Le Monde, The Telegraph, BBC, The British Journal of Photography, Stern, Huffington Post, and the New York Times.
Adam has authored three books so far – Dreamlands, Wastelands, Polaroid: The Missing Manual, The Complete Creative Guide and Big Fence/Pitcairn Island.
Born in 1990 in the United Kingdom, Karim Iliya has donned several hats. He is a photographer, filmmaker, and whale swimming guide based in Iceland and Hawaii, as per dearMoon channel on YouTube.
Iliya, who grew up in the Middle East and Asia, has worked in more than 45 countries. He has also won many awards and his work has been published in National Geographic Magazine and BBC Earth, says dearMoon.
The photographer has also co-founded Kogia, a non-profit media library and film team dedicated to ocean conservation.
Brendan Hall is a filmmaker from the United States. After completing his graduation from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, the documentary filmmaker began his career assisting with development at the National Geographic Channel, says dreamMoon channel.
He has also worked for documentaries on Netflix and PBS including Bill Nye: Science Guy and Red Heaven.
Czech artist Yemi AD is a “multidisciplinary creative force, social innovator and choreographer”.
He founded JAD Productions, one of the leading creative production companies in Europe, in 2010, as per dreamMoon.
The artist was appointed as Czech Goodwill Ambassador by the Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2019. He has also been working for disadvantaged children in Indonesia, India and Nigeria.
He is also the founder of Moonshot Platform Inc, a US-based non-profit organization.
US Olympic snowboarder Kaitlyn Farrington and Japanese dancer Miyu have been selected as backups.
33-year-old Farrington won Olympic Gold Medal in snowboard halfpipe in the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games.
She had to retire from competitive snowboarding after she was diagnosed with congenital cervical stenosis.
25-year-old Miyu is a professional dancer, choreographer, and movement practitioner.
She has won acclaim throughout Japan and other nations including Juste Debout in Paris.
Miyu also works as a model, brand ambassador and performer in music videos.
With inputs from agencies
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