K-pop star TOP and DJ Steve Aoki will be among the eight crew members that Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa plans to take on a trip around the moon as soon as next year, hopping on one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets.
Maezawa purchased every seat on the first lunar mission, which has been planned since 2018 and would follow his 12-day trip to the ISS aboard a Soyuz spacecraft last year.
Maezawa made the selections public on Twitter and at a website he called the “#dearMoon Project.”
As commercial companies like Blue Origin, owned by Jeff Bezos, usher in a new era of space travel for wealthy clients, the fashion tycoon and his crew would become the first passengers on the SpaceX flyby of the moon.
SpaceX’s Starship mission is expected to return to Earth in eight days, including three days spent circling the moon and getting within 200 kilometers of the lunar surface.
Despite the fact that the flight was originally scheduled for 2023, ongoing tests of the spacecraft and its rockets are causing delays.
Choi Seung Hyun, better known by his stage name TOP, and Aoki, a Japanese-American musician and DJ whose father founded the Benihana restaurant chain, are two of the more well-known members chosen. Choi Seung Hyun made his name with the K-pop group Big Bang.
