Artists to score a free trip to the moon with Elon Musk & Yusaku Maezawa

19 September 2018 - 16:51 By tymon smith
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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shakes hands with Yusaka Maezawa, the Japanese billionaire chosen by the company to fly around the moon, on September 17 2018 in Hawthorne, California.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shakes hands with Yusaka Maezawa, the Japanese billionaire chosen by the company to fly around the moon, on September 17 2018 in Hawthorne, California.
Image: Mario Tama/Getty Images/Gallo Images

Elon Musk has pledged to send Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa on a trip around the moon in 2023 on Space X’s as yet untested Big Falcon Rocket.

Maezawa, founder of fashion retail website Zozo and avid art collector, is well, over the moon, about the prospect of being Space X's first space tourist. So much so that he's launched a project he’s calling #dearMoon, which will see artists accompany him into the great beyond to be "inspired as they never have before".

According to the website for the project, Maezawa will select a painter, musician, film director and fashion designer to participate in his “awe-inspiring global art project". 

After all, as he muses on the project’s site:  "If Pablo Picasso had been able to see the moon up-close, what kind of paintings would he have drawn? If John Lennon could have seen the curvature of the Earth, what kind of songs would he have written? If they had gone to space, how would the world have looked today?"

There’s no word yet on who the possible candidates might be for this proposed cosmic exhibition but you can be sure that eccentric billionaire, former skateboarder and rock drummer is busy with the selection process.


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