Elon Musk’s spacecraft design and manufacturer company, SpaceX, has announced that Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese billionaire and self-proclaimed "skateboarder, drummer, and an entrepreneur” will be the first person to buy a ticket to ride around the Moon. Maezawa, the founder of Japan’s largest online clothing retailer, Zozotown, is looking to bring artists from differing backgrounds on the pioneering ride in a project called #dearMoon. The billionaire is known for his extensive art collection, including the record-breaking $110.5 million he spent in 2017 on Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “Untitled” (1982).  The inaugural orbit is set to take place as early as 2023, with the overall mission being to inspire the artists along the journey to create work related to their intergalactic experience. 

Maezawa has named himself the ‘Host Curator’ of the week-long trip, and will invite artists from nine different categories, painter, dancer, musician, fashion designer, sculptor, film director, architect, novelist, and photographer. Describing his own motivations behind the project, Maezawa explains, "I choose to go to the Moon, with artists. If Pablo Picasso had been able to see the moon up-close, what kind of paintings would he have drawn? If John Lennon could have seen the curvature of the Earth, what kind of songs would he have written? If they had gone to space, how would the world have looked today?”

Words: Paola de Oliveira
Photography: SpaceX