spacetoday.net: Japanese billionaire announces contest for Starship mission

Posted: Sun, Mar 7, 2021, 11:49 AM ET (1649 GMT)
A Japanese billionaire is relaunching plans to fly people around the moon on SpaceX's Starship. Yusaku Maezawa unveiled a new contest Tuesday to select eight people who will accompany him on the proposed "dearMoon" flight in 2023. He announced in 2018 he would buy the flight to send a group of artists around the moon, but in the new announcement said that the contest is open to the public: "If you see yourself as an artist, then you are an artist." He revealed few details about how he will select the people or other rules of the contest. In a video, Musk said he was confident that Starship would be ready for a 2023 mission around the moon, a schedule most see as aspirational.