Elon Musk: SpaceX founder may launch to moon with a crew of artists

Elon
Musk makes a face while presenting an updated design of SpaceX’s
Big Falcon Rocket.
Chris
Carlson/AP

• Elon Musk, founder of the
  rocket company SpaceX, announced on Monday that
  Yusaku Maezawa is slated to become the first private passenger
  on a voyage to the moon.
• Maezawa, a Japanese
  billionaire and art collector, purchased all the seats on
  SpaceX’s first lunar mission  — an investment that’s
  helping fund the development of a giant new launch system
  called Big Falcon Rocket.
• Up to eight artists may join Maezawa on the roughly week-long
  “#dearMoon” mission.
• However, Maezawa has also invited Musk himself to go. Musk
  hasn’t said no, but “maybe.”

LOS ANGELES, California — Inside SpaceX’s cavernous rocket
factory on Monday night, Elon Musk announced that
Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese billionaire and art collector, is

funding a private mission around the moon for himself
and eight artists.

What’s more, there may be a slim chance Musk will join Maezawa on
his lunar voyage.

SpaceX’s first moon mission is slated to launch in 2023 aboard
the
Big Falcon Rocket, or BFR: a 38-story-tall rocket and
spaceship system that engineers are currently
prototyping in a tent at
the Port of Los Angeles.

Maezawa purchased all of the seats on the BFR’s
spaceship for untold millions, and he plans to invite a group
of diverse artists to fly on a circumlunar mission, as part of a
project he’s calling #dearMoon.

SpaceX’s
rendering of a Big Falcon Rocket spaceship carrying a passenger
around the moon.

SpaceX/Twitter

Tentative plans show the flight lasting about six days and
bringing the BFR’s building-size spaceship within dozens of miles
of the lunar surface (but not landing on it).

SpaceX has been in talks about the moon mission with Maezawa

since at least 2017, though the previous plan called for
flying in a much smaller
Crew Dragon capsule atop a
Falcon Heavy rocket.

BFR is dramatically larger, more powerful, and highly ambitious;
Musk ultimately hopes to
use the system to colonize Mars.

If the #dearMoon mission is successful — Musk described it as
“very dangerous” and “no walk in the park” — Maezawa and his
Bohemian crew could become the first-ever lunar tourists, as well
as the first people to visit the moon since NASA’s Apollo
astronauts left it in 1972.

Will Elon Musk fly to the moon with a bunch of artists?

SpaceX

After Musk introduced Maezawa and presented information about the
mission and the BFR system, reporters in the room peppered the
two men with questions.

“What does that make you think about going to space, and when do
you think that is going to happen?” Michael Sheetz, a reporter
for CNBC, asked
Musk.

“This has done a lot to restore my faith in humanity, that
somebody is willing to do this,” Musk said. “To take their money
and help fund this project that’s risky, might not succeed. It’s
dangerous, and he’s donating seats — these are great things. It’s
done a lot to restore my faith in humanity.”

But then Musk seemed to realize that the question was about
whether he himself was ready to become a space tourist.

“As far as me going? I’m not sure. He did suggest that maybe I
would join on this trip,” Musk said of Maezawa. “I don’t know.”

But Maezawa enthusiastically interrupted Musk.

“Oh yeah, yeah — please, please,” Maezawa said.

 “Alright. Maybe we’ll both be on it,” Musk responded,
though it was hard to tell if he was serious or not.

A rendering of what a
lunar tourism trip on the BFR might one day look
like.
SpaceX

Musk told Business Insider during the press conference that
SpaceX still only has “some concepts” for the
interior design of the BFR’s spaceship and its crew quarters.
But he added that a week-long lunar voyage (instead of a
six-month slog to Mars) leaves ample room for backup life support
— and fun.

“What is the most fun you can have in zero G?” Musk said of the
interior design plans. “We’ll do that.”

Read more about SpaceX’s recent announcement: