Japan space tourist: Moon training 'shouldn't be too hard'

World
Europe

Billionaire Japanese tycoon and future space tourist Yusaku Maezawa's joked his training to go to the moon should not be too tricky on Tuesday, adding that he planned to use free time from his six-hour workday to squeeze training in.

The 42-year-old Maezawa paid an undisclosed sum for a ticket on fellow tycoon Elon Musk's SpaceX rocket around the moon as early as 2023 and the passionate art collector also plans to take around half a dozen artists with him on the trip.

"It hasn't been decided yet what training I will need to undergo but Elon Musk has said it shouldn't be too hard," Maezawa jested, adding in Japanese, "I believe English will be a must."

Yusaku Maezawa, CEO of Zozo Inc. and also SpaceX's first private passenger to take a trip around the moon in 2023, poses with a model of the SpaceX BFR rocket and the spacesuit's helmet during a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo, Japan, October 9, 2018. /VCG Photo

Asked how he could fit astronaut training around his already hectic schedule, he said he adhered to his own company policy of working a six-hour day and devoting the rest of the time to personal projects.

"I don't go to work from morning to night. I'm there three or four times a week and I try to go home after six hours," Maezawa told a packed news conference in Tokyo.

Maezawa will hitch a ride aboard Musk's Big Falcon Rocket (BFR), which SpaceX has acknowledged may not be ready for human flight for at least five years.

First announced in 2016 and estimated to cost five billion US dollars, the BFR was touted as the most powerful rocket in history, even more potent than the Saturn V moon rocket that launched the Apollo missions five decades ago.

August 28, 1972: The Saturn V rocket for the Apollo 17 lunar mission mounted on a crawler-transporter emerging from the Vertical Assembly Building to make its way down the Crawlerway to Launch Complex 39-A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, US. /VCG Photo

Maezawa said he had received "safety guarantees" that allowed him to be able to invite the artists along on the trip, although he confirmed he had not yet begun negotiations with potential fellow-travelers.

He said he was most looking forward to seeing the entire Earth from space.

"I look forward to getting close to the moon. I would like to see the Earth in full view... To see it with my own eyes, just thinking about it now makes tears well up in my own eyes," he said.

Maezawa is chief executive of Japan's largest online fashion store, Zozo Inc. and is the 13th richest person in Japan, with an estimated fortune of 2.8 billion US dollars, according to business magazine Forbes.

He did not deny there were some commercial interests behind his decision to pay for a ticket to the moon, as the exposure has hugely boosted his profile.

"I was formerly known as 'Maezawa the fashion guy' and now it's been updated to 'Maezawa, who's going to the moon'," he said.

(Top photo: Yusaku Maezawa, CEO of Zozo Inc. and also SpaceX's first private passenger to take a trip around the moon in 2023, speaks during a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo, Japan, October 9, 2018. /VCG Photo)

Source(s): AFP