The DearMoon project has revealed the 8 international personalities who will embark with Yusaku Maezawa on a trip to the Moon aboard the spaceship Starship, chartered by SpaceX.
We know the list of the eight people who will accompany the Japanese Yusaku Maezawa on his trip around the Moon. She was announced on December 8 by the Japanese entrepreneur behind the project – dearMoon – and by SpaceX, the company that will provide the spacecraft for this adventure. It will be the starship.
The nine people are:
- Yusaku Maezawa, Japanese;
- Steve Aoki, American;
- Choi Seung Hyun, South Korean;
- Yemi AD, Czech;
- Rhiannon Adam, Irish;
- Tim Dodd, American;
- Karim Ilya, British;
- Brendan Hall, American;
- Dev D. Joshi, Indian;
The committee includes two substitutes: American Kaitlyn Farrington and Japanese Miyu. They will be able to board if one of the nine other participants withdraws, whether it is a matter of giving up (such a trip can end up being scary) or of an unforeseen event (if one or a holder becomes ill and can no longer board).
On paper, the crew will board the Starship spacecraft from the United States for a one-week trip. This will also be the first crew to board this vehicle. During this epic, they will graze the surface of the moon with a passage at an altitude of almost 200 kilometers. It is very close in spatial scale.
The DearMoon project is set for 2023, but…
SpaceX’s schedule plans to carry out the dearMoon mission – which was revealed in 2018 – not before 2023. A date that seems risky today, however: the starship has never been tested in its full version at the moment. It also did not perform an orbit around the Earth or complete an empty trip around the Moon, as a test.
It’s likely that SpaceX will have to revise its schedule in the coming months—which wouldn’t be surprising, given that the company and its boss, Elon Musk, have previously set deadlines that turned out to be unrealistic. An example ? Falcon Heavy’s maiden flight, originally set for 2013, didn’t happen until 2018. And such inaccurate predictions are common with Elon Musk.
With the dearMoon project, there is a race of sorts between SpaceX and NASA, as the US space agency also plans to send a crew around the Moon soon. This is the Artemis 2 mission, expected in 2024. NASA is well underway: its SLS rocket is ready; it completes the Artemis 1 mission; and above all, she has the experience.
