Japanese billionaire Maezawa selects K-pop star TOP and DJ Steve Aoki to join SpaceX’s lunar flight

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa revealed on Friday that K-pop superstar and DJ Steve Aoki will be among the eight crew members who plan to take a trip around the moon as soon as next year. Ride on one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets.

Maezawa bought every seat on his first lunar flight, which has been in the works since 2018 and will follow his 12-day trip on a Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) last year.

The selections were announced by Maezawa on Twitter and on a website for what has been called the #dearMoon Project.

The fashion mogul and his crew will become the first passengers aboard a SpaceX flight to the moon as commercial companies, including Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, usher in a new era of space travel for wealthy clients.

The mission aboard SpaceX’s spacecraft is scheduled to take eight days from launch to return to Earth, including three days orbiting the moon, within 200 kilometers of the lunar surface. Although the flight was scheduled for 2023, it faces delays due to ongoing tests of the spacecraft and its rockets.

Like fellow billionaire Musk, Maezawa is passionate about promotion and fond of Twitter — he boasted of holding the Guinness World Record for most retweeted post, when he offered a cash prize of 1 million yen ($7,300) to 100 winners for a retweet.

Maezawa used the microblogging site to recruit eight crew members from around the world to join him on the moon trip, saying one million people had applied.

TOP, the stage name of Choi Seung Hyun who broke out with K-pop group Big Bang, is among the high profile members chosen, along with Aoki, a Japanese-American musician and DJ whose father founded the Benihana restaurant chain.

“I feel very proud and very responsible to be the first Korean civilian to go to the moon,” Top said in a video released after the announcement.

Indian actor Dev Joshi was also among those chosen for the group, which consisted largely of artists and photographers. U.S. Olympic figure skater Kaitlin Farrington and Japanese dancer Mio are named as backup crew members.

Maezawa, 47, reported an update on the lunar mission on Monday, tweeting that he had an online meeting with Musk and was preparing for a “big space announcement.”

Maezawa made his fortune by founding the online fashion retail company Zozo Inc (3092.T)and Softbank Group Corp (9984.T) Online business is now the largest contributor.

($1 = 136.7600 yen)

(Reporting by Rocky Swift) Editing by Leslie Adler and Sandra Mahler

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