SpaceX Announced Its First Lunar Tourist

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has announced that Yusaku Maezawa is a passenger of the first Lunar tourism. Maezawa is a 42-year-old Japanese billionaire. He is a founder of Japan’s largest online fashion shop, Zozotown. $2.9 billion worth Maezawa has invited 6 to 8 artists to join him on the trip. He will pay for all who will join him. The prize of the ticket is not disclosed yet. The journey will take place on 2023. 

(An illustration of SpaceX's BFR flying nearby Moon - SpaceX)

Maezawa will be the first private passenger going to fly around the Moon. So far, 24 men flew around the Moon through Apollo Missions. Among them, 12 astronauts have walked on the Moon and 6 astronauts have drove Lunar Roving Vehicles on the Moon. SpaceX is a promising private space company founded and run by Elon Musk. They are currently delivering cargos to the International Space Station (ISS). They are going to take NASA astronauts to the ISS on 2019. On February 6, 2018, SpaceX launched its powerful rocket, Falcon Heavy with Musk’s sports car – Tesla Roadster as a dummy payload. The Falcon Heavy will orbit around the Sun from a safe distance.

SpaceX is going to use its another super heavy rocket called Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) for the Lunar tourism.  BFR is an advanced reusable rocket. It is planned to use for transporting humans and cargos to Mars. The space tourism is not new. The Russian Space Agency has taken 7 tourists to the ISS between 2001 and 2009. Dennis Tito was the first space tourist went to the ISS. Mark Shuttleworth was the second space tourist. Shuttleworth is the founder and CEO of a computer software company called Canonical Ltd. The Canonical Ltd supports and develops the famous Linux operating system, Ubuntu. Those 7 space tourists paid the Russian Space Agency for their travel.

The Apollo program was ended in 1972. Since then, no humans were visited the Moon. Thus, the BFR Lunar Mission is an exciting news. It will start a new era of space travel and tourism.