Rapper T.O.P (Big Bang) Invited by Japanese Billionaire Yusaku Maezawa to Join SpaceX’s Dear Moon Project.
According to eDaily, T.O.P, the singer from Big Bang, will be the first South Korean to travel to space. Sources from the site indicate that the male rapper has been selected by billionaire Yusaku Maezawa to participate in the Dear Moon project. He is one of the eight artists who will take part.
On March 3, 2021, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa began searching for eight lucky individuals to accompany him as the first passengers on a flight around the Moon.
T.O.P is the first member of the crew sponsored by billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. (Photo: eDaily).
He plans to invite artists for a week-long trip with SpaceX, the company founded by billionaire Elon Musk, scheduled for 2023, according to Reuters. This recruitment project by Maezawa aims to “give more opportunities for people from all over the world to join this trip. If you see yourself as an artist, then you are an artist,” he stated.
Maezawa, who sold his fashion business brand Zozo Inc. to SoftBank in 2019, is covering all expenses for the trip. The journey will utilize a new generation of reusable launch vehicles named Starship from SpaceX.
The project outlines two selection criteria for members, including the potential for significant development through space travel, contributing to humanity, and the ability to support their fellow travelers.
Previously, Yusaku Maezawa expressed his close relationship with T.O.P through a social media post. “It has been a long time since T.O.P and I had the chance to meet and talk like this. We are standing in front of a piece that will be auctioned at Philips by Basquiat,” the billionaire captioned the post along with two photos of them together.
Yusaku Maezawa is a well-known billionaire in Japan. He founded the e-commerce platform Start Today and the largest shopping mall in the country, Zojotown. Maezawa is often referred to as the “Elon Musk of Japan” due to his unique ideas and vision related to space. In 2018, he was announced as the first customer for a Moon travel mission conducted by SpaceX.
Besides T.O.P, Yusaku Maezawa also shared photos with actor Lee Byung-hun in September. However, it is currently unclear whether the artist will participate in the aforementioned space travel plans.
In the ongoing space race among billionaires, Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin have conducted test flights, taking these entrepreneurs into space in 2021. Meanwhile, SpaceX flights primarily serve NASA astronauts.
However, the solutions from Virgin Atlantic and Blue Origin only provide a brief experience of weightlessness. In contrast, SpaceX’s program offers longer-duration flights.
