SpaceX’s first civilian lunar mission will take BIGBANG’S T.O.P and DJ Steve Aoki to the Moon | Engadget

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has picked his companions for SpaceX’s first all-civilian mission to the Moon over a yr after he put out a name for potential non-public astronauts. He chose eight crew members and two backups from numerous backgrounds to be a part of the mission referred to as “dearMoon,” and whereas software was open to everybody, a few of the names will doubtless stand out whenever you evaluate the listing. One of the individuals flying with Maezawa on SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft is Choi Seung Hyun, higher generally known as T.O.P. from the Korean boy band BIGBANG. 

DJ Steve Aoki can also be a part of the crew, in addition to Tim Dodd, who’s recognized for creating space-themed content material as a photographer and host of YouTube channel Everyday Astronaut. The different crew members embrace Rhiannon Adam, a photographic artist from Ireland who now works in London and the US, and Yemi A.D., a designer, director, choreographer and non-profit org founder from the Czech Republic. Brendan Hall, a filmmaker who directed tasks for National Geographic, Karim Iliya, a filmmaker who paperwork whales, birds and different threatened species, and Dev D. Joshi, an actor from India, spherical up the principle crew listing. Meanwhile, snowboarding Olympic gold medalist Kaitlyn Farrington and Japanese dancer Miyu have been named as backup crew. 

Maezawa mentioned the venture obtained about 1,000,000 functions from people all over the world who went by a strict choice course of. The inclusion of musicians and different creatives does not come as a shock, for the reason that billionaire initially supposed to deliver artists with him on the journey in hopes that it will encourage them to create one thing that promotes world peace. He did not say why he selected T.O.P. particularly, however the rapper did don a spacesuit for one in every of BIGBANG’s music movies.

The expensiveMoon venture was launched in 2018 after Maezawa bought all of the seats for a six-day journey to the Moon from SpaceX. It will fly a single circumlunar trajectory round Earth’s devoted companion and is predicted to happen someday subsequent yr, although the precise date will depend on Starship’s growth. To put together for the expensiveMoon mission, Maezawa flew to the ISS final yr and spent 12 days on the flying lab capturing movies about life in area. 

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