from the making-spacefright-safe-for-non-astronauts dept.
Japanese Billionaire Arrives at Space Station for 12-Day Tourist Trip:
Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese billionaire and fashion retail mogul, arrived at the International Space Station for a 12-day stay on Wednesday. [Dec 8] He is the latest privately funded traveler to the orbital laboratory in a year that has seen more tourists making voyages to space than ever before.
Mr. Maezawa, the founder of Zozo, a Japanese online fashion retailer, launched to space from Baikonur, Kazakhstan at 2:38 a.m. Eastern time (10:38 a.m. local time) on a Russian Soyuz rocket with Yozo Hirano, a production assistant who will document his trip. Alexander Misurkin, a Russian astronaut, was also on board. The three-man crew docked to the space station six hours later at 8:40 a.m. and boarded the outpost around 11:12 a.m.
[...] Mr. Maezawa, an animated adventure-seeker, drew international attention in 2016 when he spent $57.3 million at an auction for a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat. In 2017, he paid $110.5 million for another painting by the same artist. In 2018, he declared his interest in spaceflight at an event at the Southern California headquarters of SpaceX, where he joined the company's founder, Elon Musk, onstage to announce that he would be the first passenger to ride SpaceX's Starship, a massive next-generation rocket that will one day ferry NASA astronauts to the lunar surface.
[...] The space station jaunt for Mr. Maezawa, 46, was announced in May, and he has been training for weeks at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Center just outside Moscow.
Read more of the article for estimates of how much Yusaku may have paid for his ride to space.
Previously:
Related Stories
During a press conference at his company's Hawthorne, CA headquarters, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced the first planned private passenger to travel into deep space and around the Moon. Yusaku Maezawa, a billionaire fashion entrepreneur and art collector, paid an undisclosed amount to become one of the first people to fly on a SpaceX Big Falcon Rocket (BFR), with a target date of 2023. If the launch happens, he won't be going alone. Maezawa (aka "MZ") plans to invite at least six to eight artists to accompany him on a journey around the Moon. The passengers chosen may be painters, sculptors, musicians, fashion designers, dancers, film directors, architects, etc. and are intended to represent the Earth and participate in an art exhibition after returning to Earth. Musk himself has also been invited. The project is called #dearMoon.
Yusaku Maezawa approached SpaceX and made a contribution that will pay for a "non-trivial" amount of the BFR's development costs. During the Q&A, Musk estimated that the entire development of BFR would cost around $5 billion, or no less than $2 billion and no more than $10 billion. Other potential sources of funding for BFR development include SpaceX's top priority, Crew Dragon flights to the International Space Station (ISS), as well as satellite launches and Starlink satellite broadband service.
Maezawa (along with a guest) was a previously announced anonymous customer for a Falcon Heavy ride around the Moon. SpaceX currently has no plans to human-rate the Falcon Heavy. The switch from Falcon Heavy to BFR will substantially increase the maximum number of passengers and comfort level attainable on a nearly week-long mission, since the Crew Dragon 2 has a pressurized volume of just 10 m3, about 1% of the volume of the BFS.
from the to-the-moon-Alice dept.
SpaceX moon passenger Yusaku Maezawa has 20,000 applicants to be girlfriend he takes on journey:
Yusaku Maezawa, the Japanese billionaire set to become the first private passenger on a SpaceX Starship, is seeking a partner to "go to the moon with him." The 44-year-old Japanese drummer-turned-entrepreneur, who founded clothing site Zozotown, has begun an unusual quest to find a female partner to take to the moon -- and he's reportedly got over 20,000 applicants.
In partnership with Elon Musk's SpaceX, Maezawa announced in 2018 he would be going to the moon. As part of his mission, he bought up six to eight seats on the company's next-generation Starship and told reporters he would be asking six to eight artists to head to lunar orbit with him. The project, known as #dearMoon, is scheduled to launch in 2023.
[...] As of Thursday, AbemaTV said 21,700 people had applied, with 16 hours left until the deadline.
Japanese billionaire seeks 8 crewmembers for moon-bound mission on SpaceX's Starship:
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa is looking for eight crewmembers for a mission to the moon.
Maezawa, a controversial entrepreneur who previously held a "girlfriend contest" for a now-defunct space-bound mission, announced Tuesday (March 2) that his dearMoon project, which aims to fly the "first civilian mission to the moon," according to the project website, is now looking for eight crewmembers to fly to and around the moon and back on SpaceX's Starship spacecraft.
The project was announced in 2018 with the original intent to bring a crew of artists to the moon. In this latest release, Maezawa calls for applicants to make up a crew of eight individuals from around the world for the week-long lunar trip.
For more information about the project and applicant requirements, check out the dearMoon website here.
Related: How SpaceX's lunar flight with Yusaku Maezawa will work
Watch this video to learn more about the selection process. It also contains a special message from @elonmusk #dearMoon ↓ Check the full version March 2, 2021
(Score: 2, Touché) by mhajicek on Friday December 10 2021, @06:26AM
If he seeks animated adventures, he can do that from the couch.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 10 2021, @11:35AM (4 children)
While the rest of us are wondering what carbon footprint our little rich buddy just made.
With fashion being the number 2 polluter, he really ranks up there doing wonderful things with his life.
God Bless him.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 10 2021, @11:59AM
Steel works, transportation, and household heating and appliances are the top 3. Fashion isn't even a dent.
(Score: 2) by oumuamua on Friday December 10 2021, @03:45PM (2 children)
There are only so many satellites to launch before demand evaporates. Space tourism is a good driver for the commercialization of space, so if you support mankind going out into the solar system space tourism should be cheered not jeered.
(Score: 2) by bmimatt on Friday December 10 2021, @04:44PM (1 child)
Sure. As long as it is properly taxed.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 11 2021, @06:23AM
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bart9h on Friday December 10 2021, @01:38PM (1 child)
12 days seems too much for me to be confined in a space station (for fun).
I imagine that the magic of gazing at the planet from up there would fade after the second or third day.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Friday December 10 2021, @02:51PM
Perhaps, but considering how much he spent to get there. He may as well get a week and a half long "vacation in space". While it would lose it's initial bright shiny wow factor after a few days. There's no other view like it. Certainly has to be better than some of my "vacations".
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"