A billionaire from Japan will pay for a flight around the moon on a Starship ship for 8 earthlings (2 photos + video)

Space travel is getting more and moreavailable from the technical point of view, but remain quite an expensive event due to the high cost of launching into orbit. However, sponsors and patrons helped to solve financial issues at all times.

The first fully planned for this yearThe civilian mission of Crew Dragon C207 Resilience will be paid for by the 37-year-old founder of the payment platform Shift4 Payments, Jared Isaacman, who will lead the expedition. An even more unique journey in 2023 will be made by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, who became the first passenger of the dearMoon mission on SpaceX's Starship spacecraft. He also decided to pay for 8 more places for civilians, whom he will choose on his own.

Until March 14, every earthling has the opportunityjoin a Japanese entrepreneur who made billions of dollars by selling his fashion retailer Zozotown. The billionaire invited anyone who wants to join the dearMoon mission, for which you just need to submit applications, registration of which will last until March 14. In the application, the applicant must indicate his name, country of residence, e-mail address and attach his photo. The initial screening will begin on March 21, and the physical examination will take place in May.

Yusaka Maezawa paid for the entire trip, sovolunteers will fly for free. The dearMoon mission will last about a week: Starship will fly to the Moon for three days, it will take about a day to fly around our satellite in a circumlunar orbit, and it will take three days to return to the road. A total of 10 to 12 people will be on the ship, eight of whom will be picked up by Maezawa.

The Japanese also put forward a number of requirements forapplicants. The future civilian astronaut must, firstly, carry out "any activity" that will receive a positive impetus after traveling around the moon and secondly, the candidate must be a team player, able to work in a group and support the expedition members.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk noted that the missiondearMoon, will allow humans not only to make the first civilian flight to the Moon, but also send earthlings farther than humans have ever flown. The path that Starship plans to fly will exceed the distance traveled by the Apollo missions that landed astronauts on the lunar surface.

SpaceX continued to work on creatingStarship, a next-generation rocket that will help fulfill Musk's plans for the exploration of the Moon and Mars. On the night of March 3 to 4, SpaceX, after two unsuccessful launches (SN9 in February and SN8 in December 2020), was still able to land another SN10 rocket prototype, which then exploded and as a result "flew" again, this time meters 70 above the Earth. Presumably the cause of the fire and explosion was a hard hit during landing and the subsequent ignition of methane. However, the company already has the next prototype SN11 ready, which will start as soon as the site is cleared of the debris of its predecessor.