Japanese Billionaire to Be First Tourist to Moon: SpaceX

San Francisco: US private space firm SpaceX has announced that the company’s first private passenger to the Moon will be Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa.

“The first private passenger to fly around the Moon aboard BFR (Big Falcon Rocket) is fashion innovator and globally recognized art curator Yusaku Maezawa,” SpaceX tweeted on Monday. Maezawa, 42, is the founder and CEO of Zozo, the largest online fashion retailer in Japan.

Maezawa is also known as a contemporary art collector and curator with a large collection at his Contemporary Art Foundation in Tokyo, which features works of various renowned painters like Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Alexander Calder and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Maezawa announced on his Twitter and Instagram accounts that he plans to take a select group of artists with him on his trip around the moon saying: “I choose to go to the Moon, with artists,” adding then “What will they see ? What will they feel ? And what will they create ?”

According to Forbes, Maezawa is the 18th richest man in Japan with a fortune of $2.9 billion. Maezawa’s trip to the moon will be made on board a BFR, which is currently still in development. (IANS)