Elon Musk sells seats on SpaceX moon mission to Japanese billionaire

The billionaire is also inviting eight artists along with him. It would be the first time a civilian crew has participated in a mission to the moon.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk (left) shakes hands with Yusaka Maezawa, the Japanese billionaire chosen by the company to fly around the moon. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
  • The billionaire is Yusaku Maezawa, a 42-year-old Japanese entrepreneur who founded the clothing website Zozo.
  • Maezawa, SpaceX's first paying passenger, purchased all the open seats on the first-of-its-kind mission.
  • Maezawa is calling the mission an art project, dubbed #dearMoon.
  • Elon Musk says Maezawa's risky investment in #dearMoon has "done a lot to restore my faith in humanity."
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How a spaceship the size of a postage-stamp could find humanity’s new home planet

Sending a tiny spaceship to the nearest habitable planet at 20% of the speed of light? No problem, says theoretical physicist Michio Kaku.

Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku doesn't just hope that humanity finds its way onto other planets... he's even picked out the ones we should be moving to — Proxima Centauri B, in the Alpha Centauri triple star system. He's even suggested that the next great space exploration could happen on a spaceship the size of a postage stamp, traveling 20% the speed of light, sent by using high-powered lasers. It sounds like a wild theory, but if anyone's wild theories could come true in the next 100 years, it's probably Michio Kaku. His latest book is The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth.

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