Moon: Artists On Spacex First Commercial Flyby

The history of space flight and the moon are forever entwined since the Apollo missions and we have been getting closer to another human setting foot on the satellite since Eugene Cernan left his footprints and his daughters initials in the lunar dust in December 1972.

- Benjamin Kerry & Gavin Lenaghan

The history of space flight and the moon are forever entwined since the Apollo missions and we have been getting closer to another human setting foot on the satellite since Eugene Cernan left his footprints and his daughter’s initials in the lunar dust in December 1972.

Japanese entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa won’t quite emulate him but hopes to get closer than anybody else has since Apollo 17 returned to Earth.

On Monday Maezawa was unveiled at a SpaceX press conference alongside CEO Elon Musk to announce that he had secured tickets for himself and several handpicked companions for a weeklong journey into space scheduled to launch in 2023. This will be the first manned commercial flight to the moon ever attempted.

“I choose to go to the moon” – Yusaku Maezawa, 42, is the first paying customer who will board SpaceX’s BFR (Big Falcon Rocket) reusable rocket and orbiter. While still being years away from takeover in a Research & Development sense, Elon Musk estimated that the circuit around the moon could happen as soon as 2023 but only after the vehicle had completed several unscrewed test flights successfully.

“Why do I want to go to the moon?” mused Maezawa. “This is very meaningful. I thought long and hard about this, and at the same time I thought about how I can give back to the world.”