A JOURNEY AROUND THE MOON A BILLIONAIRE OF JAPANESE OFFERS EIGHT SEATS TO ACCOMPANY HIM ON BOARD THE STARSHIP ROCKET

If it has long been an old dream of science fiction writers, space tourism today represents a concrete field for which many companies have launched projects. This is particularly the case with SpaceX, whose commercial reusable rocket Starship is currently being tested.

Elon Musk's company has teamed up with Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa for the dearMoon project, which involves traveling around the moon in 2023. And the billionaire, online fashion mogul, art collector contemporary and patron, offers eight tickets to people around the world to accompany him on a space tourism trip around the Moon, scheduled for 2023 with SpaceX.

Yusaku Maezawa was the first private customer to book a flight aboard Starship, a future habitable rocket developed by US aerospace company Elon Musk, for an undisclosed fee. Initially, he planned to find a girlfriend for his flight around the Moon, by launching a strange contest with "single women aged 20 and over". He then changed his plans, not without having attracted nearly 30,000 applications, saying he wanted to invite six to eight artists instead.

On Wednesday March 3, 2021, in a video posted on his Twitter account, the 45-year-old billionaire finally opted for a broader recruitment policy, saying he is now convinced that "everyone who does something creative can be called an artist". “I invite you to join me on this mission. Eight of you from around the world, he said. I bought all the seats so it will be a private trip. Candidates will only need to meet two criteria, he said: be willing to "push the limits" of creativity and be willing to help other crew members do the same.

Pre-registration until March 14

In all, 10 to 12 people are expected to participate in the expedition supposed to circle the moon before returning to Earth, said Yusaku Maezawa. The schedule calls for aspiring astronauts to pre-register by March 14, and an initial screening is due a week later. An "initial screening" process begins on March 21, with a "final interview and medical examination. At the end of May.

The dearMoon mission will take three days to reach the Moon and loop around it, then another three days for the return trip.

Yusaku Maezawa and his companions will become the first lunar travelers since the last American Apollo mission in 1972, at least if SpaceX is able to complete this project on time. Indeed, two prototypes of its Starship rocket crashed on landing in recent months. "I am very confident that we will reach the orbital level with Starship before 2023 and that the safety will be sufficient for human flight in 2023. It is very promising," said Elon Musk in the video of Yusaku Maezawa released. this Wednesday.

SpaceX plans to launch its first space tourism mission for the fourth quarter of 2021, targeting low Earth orbit. This mission, called Inspiration4, will be carried out using the reusable Falcon 9 space launcher and SpaceX's Crew Dragon space vehicle, already used by NASA. It will host the American billionaire Jared Isaacman, who also offered three seats at his side. Her first elected, announced at the end of February, is a 29-year-old American survivor of pediatric cancer.

SpaceX has not disclosed its spending on the Starship program as of yet, but Musk previously estimated that he expected it to cost the company around $ 5 billion.

SpaceX's valuation has skyrocketed since Maezawa's initial announcement, from around $ 25 billion at the time to around $ 74 billion last month..