The first civilian mission to the Moon has been canceled by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, who cited SpaceX’s delays in producing a travel-ready Starship spacecraft.
Maezawa, who made his fortune through e-commerce retailer Zozo, in 2018 purchased all nine seats on the “DearMoon” lunar project, which planned to make a week-long journey to the Moon and back aboard Starship, a fully reusable megarocket being developed by SpaceX. The trip was projected for a 2023 launch, but Starship is still undergoing testing.
“It’s a developmental project so it is what it is, but it is still uncertain as to when Starship can launch,” Maezawa wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Saturday. “I can’t plan my future in this situation, and I feel terrible making the crew members wait longer, hence the difficult decision to cancel at this point in time.”
In November, Maezawa posted that the flight had been delayed indefinitely. A few days later, SpaceX’s second flight test exploded just minutes into the air. After a much more successful third test in March, and a subsequent federal investigation that found no critical issues to public safety, SpaceX is targeting a fourth test as soon as Thursday.
The DearMoon project was expected to carry several crew members, including DJ Steve Aoki, documentarian Brandan Hall, K-pop singer and songwriter T.O.P., and YouTuber Tim Dodd. Irish photographer and artist Rhiannon Adam was also supposed to be on the trip and harshly criticized Maezawa’s decision and lack of communication
“I’m sorry, but as a crew member this doesn’t wash,” she wrote on X in response to Maezawa’s post about the cancellation, adding that it’s “tone deaf” to cancel a project to “inspire world peace in a time of war and no redirection of funding to help inspire such peace.”
Besides Starship’s technical delays, SpaceX has also been incredibly busy. The company, which may be valued at as much as $200 billion, has won at least one contract with U.S. government agencies worth more than $1 billion since December and is focused on broadening the reach of its Starlink satellite internet subsidiary.
As for Maezawa, he’s already been to space at least once. In 2021, he journeyed to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz rocket for a 12-day stay. His net worth has also crashed to about $1.4 billion, down from $3.1 billion at his 2017 peak, partly due to the 2019 sale of his stake in Zozo.