If you have enough money, you can take a crew of other civilians with you into space. Some of these missions actually conduct science (and the follow-up is going to be mental). Others, like dearMoon, are a little more self-promotional in nature.
The trip was announced in 2021 and opened applications to people from around the world. The final crew has now been announced and a couple of famous people have somehow made it onto the guest list. Others are less notable but everyone is an artist or performer in one way or another.
The dearMoon crew
dearMoon, if you weren’t paying attention last year, is a flight on SpaceX’s Starship. The flight is bound for the moon, performing more or less the same trip as NASA’s recently-landed Artemis 1. The catch? It’ll host Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and eight other people who aren’t really qualified to be there. Okay, one chap is kinda qualified.
But, if you think about it, every human being is zooming through space all the time. In a sense, we’re all qualified. It’s just that Maezawa and his eight cohorts (plus two backups, in case someone gets cold feet) will perform the activity while sitting in a different object.
The folks due to blast off in a SpaceX Starship with a Japanese billionaire include DJ Steve Aoki, a music artist who also dabbles in NFTs. South Korean rapper TOP (otherwise known as Choi Seung Hyun) is also making the trip.
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From there, there’s a bit of a dropoff in terms of visibility — which was sort of the point of the original call. Yemi A.D., a “multidisciplinary creative” from the Czech Republic, is going. So is Ireland’s photographic artist Rhiannon Adam. Tim Dodd is an American space YouTuber who is perhaps the only person who knows what they’re all getting into. British photographer Karim Iliya, American documentary filmmaker Brendan Hall, and Indian actor Dev D. Joshi are all also bound for space on the billionaire’s dime.
Finally, there are the two backup astronauts. Those would be American snowboarder (and Olympic Gold Medalist) Kaitlyn Farrington and Japanese dancer Miyu.
dearMoon’s mission is supposed to take off sometime next year, leaving plenty of time for things to change. But Maezawa has had his eye on this trip for some time. He’s spent twelve days on board the International Space Station in preparation for this outing. Unfortunately, there are no launch dates set just yet. We’re sure they’ll be along soon.