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szdaily -> World -> 
SpaceX’s 1st private passenger is Japanese fashion tycoon
    2018-09-19  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

SPACEX, Elon Musk’s space transportation company, has named its first private passenger as Japanese businessman Yusaku Maezawa, the founder and chief executive of online fashion retailer Zozo.

A former drummer in a punk band, billionaire Maezawa will take a trip around the moon aboard its forthcoming Big Falcon Rocket spaceship, taking the race to commercialize space travel to new heights.

The first passenger to travel to the moon since the United States’ Apollo missions ended in 1972, Maezawa’s identity was revealed at an event Monday evening at the company’s headquarters and rocket factory in the Los Angeles suburb of Hawthorne.

In moves typical of his publicity-seeking style, Musk, who is also the billionaire chief executive of electric car maker Tesla Inc., had previously teased a few tantalizing details about the trip and the passenger’s identity, but left major questions unanswered.

On Thursday, Musk tweeted a picture of a Japanese flag. He followed that up Sunday with tweets showing new artist renderings of the Big Falcon Rocket, or BFR, the super heavy-lift launch vehicle that Musk promises will shuttle the passenger to the moon and eventually fly humans and cargo to Mars, using the hashtag #OccupyMars.

While the BFR has not been built yet, Musk has said he wants the rocket to be ready for an unpiloted trip to Mars in 2022, with a crewed flight in 2024, though his ambitious production targets have been known to slip. SpaceX plans a lunar orbit mission. It was not clear how much Maezawa paid for the trip.

Maezawa made his fortune by founding the popular shopping site Zozotown. His company Zozo, officially called Start Today Co. Ltd., also offers a made-to-measure service using a polka dot bodysuit, the Zozosuit.

With SpaceX, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and entrepreneur Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic battling it out to launch private-sector spacecraft, the SpaceX passenger will join a growing list of celebrities and the ultra-rich who have secured seats on flights offered on the under-development vessels.

Those who have signed up to fly on Virgin Galactic sub-orbital missions include actor Leonardo DiCaprio and pop star Justin Bieber. A 90-minute flight costs US$250,000.

Short sightseeing trips to space aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket are likely to cost around US$200,000 to US$300,000, at least to start.

(SD-Agencies)

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