GIZKAZZAN Dec. 20 (BUS): Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa returned to Earth Monday after a 12-day journey into space, ending a training tour for his planned trip around the moon with SpaceX’s Elon Musk in 2023.
The 46-year-old fashion mogul and art collector, who blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on December 8 with his assistant Yuzu Hirano and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misorkin, touched down on the steppes of Kazakhstan.
A space enthusiast, Maezawa made the trip in a Soyuz spacecraft and became the first space tourist to travel to the International Space Station (ISS) in more than a decade.
One of Japan’s most flamboyant public figures, Maezawa has entertained his social media followers from space by snapping photos of his hometown of Chiba, showing how to make tea in Zero Gravity and discussing his lack of fresh underwear.
The businessman returned to snowy conditions on the ground, with rain and sub-zero temperatures at his landing site about 150 kilometers (93 miles) southeast of the city of Jyzkazgan in central Kazakhstan.
Maezawa will become the first private passenger on SpaceX’s lunar flight in 2023, as commercial companies including Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin herald a new era of space travel for wealthy clients.
The billionaire, who sold online fashion company Zozo to SoftBank in 2019, is looking for eight people to join him on his lunar journey in 2023, which will require applicants to pass medical exams and an interview.
MI