Japanese Billionaire Arrived at the ISS for 12-Day Tourist Trip

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant, Yozo Hirano, were blasted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to space at 10:38 am local time.

A Russian Soyuz MS-20 rocket carrying the two along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin safely arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) for touristic purposes on Wednesday.

They were trained for about 6 months at the Yuri Gagarin cosmonaut Preparation Center in Moscow. Maezawa and his production assistant who will document the trip will stay on the ISS — which is now hosting its first tourists since 2009 — for 12 days, and they will return to Earth on Dec. 20.

“I am excited to share every aspect of my journey with everyone on Earth,” the founder of Zozo said in a statement before the breathtaking journey.

Yusaku Maezawa. Credit: Reuters

Planned Moon trip by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa

The billionaire’s visit comes following his booking for a SpaceX trip to the Moon on a Starship rocket in 2023, which is dubbed “dearMoon” announced back in 2018.

Maezawa invited people to this journey in his video published on YouTube. “It will be 10 to 12 people in all, but I will be inviting 8 people to come along on the ride,” he said. You can watch the related embedded video just below.

The mission will be taken place by the Starship rocket currently being developed by SpaceX.

Entering more details, Maezawa said that the trip would take 3 days to get to the Moon, loop behind it, and 3 days to come back. Those who will accompany the Japanese billionaire will be lucky as he said he would pay for the entire journey.

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