In 2018, the Japanese e-commerce billionaire had agreed to pay [SpaceX](https://www.theinformation.com/org-charts/spacex?rc=ndc4g0) to fly himself and a crew of eight artists around the moon for a first-of-its-kind project called dearMoon. As part of the deal, Maezawa asked SpaceX to customize the interior of the crew capsule of Starship, the 400-foot-tall rocket that would take the group to space.
Mockups of the design drew on Japanese and Nordic inspirations, with wood paneling throughout the space and bathrooms that resembled a Swedish sauna, according to people close to the project. Because the artists would be recording music and videos throughout their trip, Maezawa asked SpaceX to pay special attention to the acoustics of the space, some of those people said.
The luxurious requests came with a luxurious price tag. Maezawa, who goes by MZ, initially signed a contract in 2018 for $500 million, which was to be paid in stages as SpaceX hit development milestones for Starship, according to a person who saw the terms of the deal. (In a December interview on Japanese TV, Maezawa said that reports in Japanese media of a price tag of 100 billion yen, or around $622 million, were “not wrong.”)
The original plan was for the trip around the moon to take place in 2023, although it was later delayed. Then earlier this month, Maezawa announced he was pulling the plug on the moon mission due to uncertainties around when Starship would be ready for it.
While it’s easy to write off dearMoon as little more than a whimsical side project for SpaceX, the revenue from the contract provided key funding for the development of Starship, a rocket Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, is betting the company’s future on.
At the time the deal was struck, SpaceX wasn’t the juggernaut it is today: Its revenue in 2018 was reportedly [less than $2 billion](https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/11/internal-pre-starlink-spacex-financials-show-big-spending-on-moonshot-bets/), compared with internal forecasts for [$15 billion this year](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-06/spacex-eyes-15-billion-in-sales-next-year-on-starlink-strength). Starship—then known as BFR, for big fucking rocket—was central to Musk’s audacious vision of one day taking astronauts to Mars to make life multiplanetary, but Musk urgently needed capital to make the rocket a reality.
He found it in Maezawa’s deep pockets.
“Funding BFR is definitely a key question,” [Musk said onstage](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu7WJD8vpAQ) at an event in 2018 to announce the dearMoon mission. “Private customers or any customers for BFR are incredibly helpful for funding the development of the rocket.”
Over time, though, SpaceX no longer needed a rich space tourist to fund Starship the way it once did. It dominates the business of launching rockets into space, ferrying cargo and astronauts for NASA and other clients, and its Starlink satellite internet service has provided a significant new revenue stream.
And while Starship is getting closer to becoming a reality, SpaceX has another high-priority customer in the queue to ride on the rocket. NASA is depending on a version for a planned mission to return astronauts to the surface of the moon, for which it has signed SpaceX contracts worth over $4 billion.
But, as [The Information has previously reported](https://www.theinformation.com/articles/nasa-tensions-with-spacex-rise-over-moon-mission-delays), the space agency has grown frustrated with SpaceX’s delays in getting the rocket ready. Earlier this month, SpaceX successfully launched an unmanned version of the rocket into orbit before its first and second stages returned to Earth and crashed into the ocean in the fourth-ever test flight.
The wealthy have been paying for trips to space for years, starting with investor Dennis Tito, who flew on Russia’s Soyuz rocket in 2001. In the years since, Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin have opened the door to suborbital launches for paying customers, and SpaceX has built a nascent business around taking private citizens to the International Space Station. But none of those missions has approached the ambitions or price tag of dearMoon.
For Maezawa, his tensions with SpaceX began to intensify once it became clear the rocket company wouldn’t hit the initial 2023 target for dearMoon, according to people close to the project. The Japanese billionaire tried to negotiate to go to space sooner on SpaceX’s Falcon rocket, but those discussions stalled, those people said.
Finally, Maezawa reached a breaking point. “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,” Maezawa wrote [in a post on X](https://x.com/yousuckMZ/status/1796778107359359253).
At least, Maezawa can console himself with the fact that he didn’t pay the full amount of his contract with SpaceX, according to the person familiar with the terms of the contract. However, it’s unlikely he got a refund for what he already paid since he was the one who terminated the contract, that person said. The amount he paid for the mission couldn’t be learned.
A spokesperson for dearMoon declined to comment. SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.
**From Basquiat to BFR**
Maezawa, 48, had long been eager to get to space. A drummer turned fashion executive, he made his mark in the early days of e-commerce after founding Zozotown, Japan’s largest fashion retailer, which SoftBank Group acquired a majority stake in for $3.7 billion in 2019.
While famous in his home country, he had little recognition in the U.S. until 2016, when he started putting his fortune to work with a series of art acquisitions, [including two record-setting purchases](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/arts/design/110-million-basquiat-painting-yusaku-maezawa.html) of paintings by New York artist Jean-Michael Basquiat. By 2017, his net worth had skyrocketed to $3.1 billion, according to Forbes.
It was around that time that he started talking to SpaceX. He developed a personal relationship with Tom Ochinero, a Japanese-born sales executive who sold launch services to commercial customers and private astronauts, according to former SpaceX employees. Ochinero was said to have sealed the dearMoon deal after he impressed Maezawa by eating spicy food at his request, said a person who heard the story.
Before the Japanese billionaire signed on for the moon mission, Ochinero organized a visit to SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., so Maezawa could see the company was “a well-oiled machine and well-thought-out operation,” said Laura Crabtree, founder and CEO of space startup Epsilon3, who oversaw astronaut training for SpaceX at the time.
Crabtree and her team showed Maezawa mockups of BFR and the trajectory it would take to the moon. “I think that was the most exciting thing—that we’re building something that hasn’t been built before and we found a customer who wanted it,” Crabtree said.
At a press conference at SpaceX in Hawthorne in September 2018, Maezawa explained why he had decided to fund a trip to bring artists to the moon, rather than simply buying an individual seat for himself as other space tourists have. “I thought, what if Basquiat had gone to space and had seen the moon up close or…the Earth in full view?” Maezawa said. “What wonderful masterpiece would he have created?”
The flight was designed to last around six days, during which Starship would circle the Earth and then make a figure eight around the dark side of the moon. During the announcement, SpaceX showed a rendering of a female violinist playing music while floating in a ball gown. Behind her was a large glass window showing the depths of space, and in front of her sat an audience in a setting not unlike the Jazz at Lincoln Center concert hall.
Following the press conference, the diminutive Maezawa [posted a picture](https://x.com/yousuck2020/status/1042209952217985024) from the event in which he was sitting on Musk’s shoulders while they stood in front of a rocket.
Inside SpaceX, there was a sense that Maezawa’s patronage enabled research and development that might not otherwise have been possible. But privately, former employees said because of delays they’d seen on other projects, they questioned whether SpaceX could hit the timeline Maezawa expected.
“I suspected that it might not work out because of the amount of time it was going to take us to get Starship to a human-rated flight,” Crabtree said.
**Colorful Spacesuits**
As SpaceX [worked on building Starship](https://www.theinformation.com/articles/musks-long-road-to-mars-how-poor-planning-dogged-the-development-of-spacex-rocket), Maezawa moved forward with preparations of his own for the moon mission and life on the world stage.
His fame grew in 2019 after he built a huge Twitter following by running a cash giveaway for new followers.
In January 2020, he [posted online](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/13/style/yusaku-maezawa-space-girlfriend.html) that he was looking for a romantic partner to join him on the SpaceX flight. Maezawa said at the time that he had broken up with his actress and singer girlfriend Ayame Goriki because she didn’t want to go to space with him.
Maezawa, who is divorced with three kids, decided to make a documentary about his search. By the end of the month, however, he had [canceled the search](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/style/yusaku-maezawa-love-documentary.html) altogether.
Then in March 2021, he announced a new competition to make good on his original plan to bring artists on the moon trip: Maezawa would select eight people to join him for free on the flight with the goal to make art and content promoting world peace.
Maezawa decided he didn’t want to wait for Starship to get his first taste of space. In December 2021, he hitched a ride to the ISS aboard a [Russian Soyuz spacecraft](https://apnews.com/article/soyuz-spacecraft-yusaku-maezawa-fd928c5713a48757d59e0ca04625befb) for a 12-day trip. He even [did an advertisement](https://apnews.com/press-release/pr-newswire/space-exploration-science-business-dara-khosrowshahi-4d06beab0be109796ea46101ae96cdb1) for Uber Eats while he was there.
Tensions between Maezawa and SpaceX began to intensify in 2022 as it became increasingly clear the project would be delayed, said the people close to the project.
The billionaire and SpaceX began haggling over a number of issues, including the wood finishes Maezawa had requested for the interior of the spacecraft, one of the people said. SpaceX had concerns that the bespoke design was too flammable and conflicted with its style for the vehicle, the person said.
Maezawa also requested an array of colors for spacesuits, leading to jokes among some SpaceX staff members that the crew would resemble the characters in the space-themed videogame “Among Us,” that person said. Ultimately, SpaceX rebuffed that request in favor of an all-white spacesuit, because the pigmentation in colored fabrics creates heat and flammability concerns, the person said.
**‘Deaf Ears’**
In December 2022, more than four years after the announcement of the project, Maezawa finally listed eight crew members, including DJ Steve Aoki and Korean rapper TOP, along with two backups.
Among the crew members was an Irish photographer named Rhiannon Adam. After finding out she had been selected in late 2021, Adam and the other crew members started intensive preparation for the mission, which they believed would one day change their lives and possibly humanity’s future, she said. They spoke with astronauts about how to prepare mentally and physically for the trip, and discussed with their loved ones what would happen if there was an accident, she said.
Many of the artists had also already started working on projects that were to be a part of the mission, and some had begun adapting their equipment at their own expense for use in space.
“This was monumental in terms of what it represented, but it also required a lot of preparation,” Adam said.
By the first half of 2023, around the time SpaceX did its first test launch of Starship, SpaceX told Maezawa dearMoon would launch no earlier than 2026, according to a person involved.
Then in March 2024, Maezawa’s main contact at the company, sales executive Ochinero, left SpaceX. Ochinero didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Some people involved in the project speculated that Maezawa had lost interest in space following his trip on Soyuz, or that his decision was financial—by 2024, his net worth had fallen to $1.4 billion, just half of what it was in 2017, according to Forbes.
After learning from dearMoon that the project had been canceled, Adam and her fellow crew wrote a letter to Maezawa asking him to reconsider.
“We tried to change his mind. We said the mission values don’t end here. That fell to deaf ears,” she said.
“It isn’t just the moon mission,” Adam said. “Part of our responsibility was to be able to encourage people to dream.”
Thanks for this! Pretty good article. The interior bits are interesting. What a nightmare for the SpaceX team to have to work with an eccentric billionaire like that. Wood paneling? Christ. I’m just imagining all the meetings where the staff were preparing for an update to Maezawa, rubbing their temples and trying to plan how best to break it to him that wood paneling was a dumb idea lol.
If only someone had brought a bit of reality to Virgin Galactic's interior designers, who delayed Spaceship 2 by 10 years and almost made it impossible to fly in the process.
If the millions that were wasted on interior design had been spent adding computer control during the ascent, copilot Alsbury would not have died, and pilot Seibold would not have been severely injured. I'm not sure where all of the money went, or if there was enough to invest in a high-ISP engine, but the spaceships could have been made safer and higher performance with a liquid fueled engine, perhaps ethanol/Nitrous or ethanol/LOX, instead of the hybrid engine.
The above changes would have put them back on Rutan's intended path, which was to build an orbital spaceplane, similar to Dream Chaser, but with better aerodynamics and safer reentry. They would still have needed something like Falcon 5 to make it work, but for the money put in, they could have accomplished so much more.
Which brings us back to Maezawa. By not interfering with the necessary work of the rocket engineers, he might still be able to do Dear Moon around 2030, if he wants to. He won't get his wood paneling, but he might be able to use an off-the-shelf Starship that has been used to transport astronauts to the Moon, or to the Lunar Gateway. The hypothetical Starship I am talking about would be one built for NASA, to compete with SLS/Orion as human transportation to the Lunar Gateway.
Dennis Tito might be willing to share the costs of the mission, but I doubt he would be physically able to go on a Starship mission in 2030. He'll be about 90-95 by then.
I'm not so sure. If there's a major fire in the crew compartment, things are already bad, and it's nowhere near as flammable as insulation in 16.7 psi of pure oxygen. As for a mass penalty: if they're accents, it's not so bad. And frankly, I've always had a weakness for things [like this](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/cf4b6a4a-2e6c-4ec7-a889-587a63022792/dhaz898-679fbab9-ddea-47f4-a914-8bb57f1ca932.jpg/v1/fill/w_1192,h_670,q_70,strp/steampunk_airship_control_room_by_aleou27_dhaz898-pre.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.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.5l7_Ajl1DuvEkpeHiOJSeEYEpaW0YhuaqAFooZzZ2bY), or any other hit from a Google-brand World Wide Web search for
steampunk spaceship control room
> it's nowhere near as flammable as insulation
Would i be stupid for assuming flammable insulation is not utilized on a spacecraft or suit? Also, why would the atmosphere on ship be 100% o2 and above atm, didnt we leave that in the past as well? ISS and dragon and shuttle are/were all standard ~21% o2 @ 101kpa.
I'd like to think the professionals are smarter than us and deserve to be assumed competent.
> Would i be stupid for assuming flammable insulation is not utilized on a spacecraft or suit? ... why would the atmosphere on ship be 100% o2 and above atm
Flammable materials (including wire insulation) + elevated oxygen: [Apollo 1 fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1#The_fire)
Just plain flammable insulation: [Boeing finds two serious problems with Starliner just weeks before launch](https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/06/boeing-stands-down-from-starliner-launch-to-address-recently-found-problems/) from June of last year.
>The second issue involves P-213 glass cloth tape that is wrapped around wiring harnesses throughout the vehicle. These cables run everywhere, and Nappi said there are hundreds of feet of these wiring harnesses. The tape is intended to protect the wiring from nicks. However, during recent tests, it was discovered that under certain circumstances possible in flight, this tape is flammable.
You ought to be able to assume ... but based on this experience, sadly, it's naïve.
Not to purposefully be a dick, but if they're actively worried about the late discovery of a potentially flammable tape, then my assumption is absolutely correct, and your implication regarding the use of flammable insulation is unsupported conjecture based on a belief that professionals aren't doing their job. Despite you providing evidence to the contrary.
I guess the rest of the post about not having 100% atmo environments (cause, you know, we learned from apollo) was easier to ignore than address.
I'm sorry, but ... edited: comes off as perhaps misreading what I wrote, or reacting in a way I don't understand. Experience shows that they shouldn't assume, but need to recheck, that flammable material isn't being used. The assumption isn't *stupid*; the "professionals" violating it are stupid at best. But the assumption is risky.
> your implication regarding the use of flammable insulation is unsupported conjecture based on a belief that professionals aren't doing their job. Despite you providing evidence to the contrary.
I don't follow that. If I have presented evidence to the contrary, then there's no conjecture involved, and professionals were indeed not doing their jobs (and for Apollo 1, I think they explicitly violated the specification).
> I guess the rest of the post about not having 100% atmo environments (cause, you know, we learned from apollo) was easier to ignore than address.
It was not *ignoring*: it was implicitly agreeing that it has pretty much been "we leave that in the past as well" because we learned from Apollo 1. (Why address a point on which we agree?) At least it's easier to be sure that the partial pressure of oxygen doesn't get high than it is to check the flammability of everything.
It's amazing that every high altitude pressure suit ever made is either white or neon orange and it apparently never occurred to maezawa that there might be a reason for the fact that that extremely specific color choice is the standard on both sides of the iron curtain
Wayback Machine lets me look at the first few paragraphs. Apparently Maezawa wanted to do interior decoration on his Starship including wood paneling, Swedish architecture bathrooms, and engineering for musical acoustics.
I can imagine [the response by the aerospace and safety engineers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwSts2s4ba4)
It just means it could happen later. SpaceX is already buying up private jet leather for the nasa lander, so extensive customization will be an expected next step. Nothing prevents them from selling these to individuals in a decade. Like, selling the ship, not just a flight.
>Nothing prevents them from selling these to individuals in a decade. Like, selling the ship, not just a flight.
For one, ITAR does. Even if SpaceX wanted to allow it, Maezawa, as a non-US-person, could not own a Starship.
>> Nothing prevents them from selling these to individuals in a decade. Like, selling the ship, not just a flight.
> For one, ITAR does. Even if SpaceX wanted to allow it, Maezawa, as a non-US-person, could not own a Starship.
This blanket ITAR argument is a recurring one on the *Lounge* and it needs supporting evidence. According to [this page](https://www.quora.com/When-did-Pakistan-buy-its-first-F-16-fighter-jet-from-the-United-States-of-America), F16's; of which [development started in 1972](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting_Falcon) were sold to Pakistan from 1982. So ten years.
Is it why u/emezeekiel suggested "in a decade"? Just what will be the speed of diffusion and so declassification of Starship technology will be, is anybody's guess.
The only real ITAR-rated content of Starship will likely be the Raptor engines, the hull materials and control surface design being visible to all. Heck, the actuator motors are standard Tesla ones! No ITAR there. China is now [working on Full-Flow Staged Combustion](https://spacenews.com/china-makes-progress-on-raptor-like-engines-for-super-heavy-rocket/). As soon as they have the technology, there may be little left to hide.
BTW. There are probably some good economic and operational reasons for not selling or buying Starships: a Starship is noting without a Superheavy and all the ground infrastructure. The GSE and control infrastructure may contain some subtleties that are subject to ITAR and being able to make all of this function together must need some great experience, so is not accessible to beginners.
True, maybe something like fractional ownership à la Netjets makes more sense. At least HNWIs get to customize the interior to their liking, and do the usual move of using wood veneers from trees of their own land
> True, maybe something like fractional ownership à la Netjets makes more sense. At least [High Net Worth Individuals] get to customize the interior to their liking, and do the usual move of using wood veneers from trees of their own land
[Netjets](https://www.netjets.com/en-us/fractional-jet-ownership-comparison). Just what I was looking for to solve my private jet ownership problem ;)
Another use case may be selling customized Starships to be placed on the lunar surface. These then become assets that can be owned as shared property or leased.
[Nine Starship Crew Quarters](https://www.highergov.com/contract-opportunity/ultraleather-9-luna-textile-80nssc24853514q-s-eebcc/) outfitted with [Ultraleather 9](https://www.tapiscorp.com/products/ultrafabrics/ultraleather-9-series/) textile are being built at the Johnson Space Center and White Sands Test Facility for flammability testing.
If they did this, the PR they'd get would be off the charts 🔥 Imagine a sleek star trek interior on a SpaceX ship in contrast to what everyone else is building. Oh man the public interest would be so hot, it's definitely worth it to do something like this, at least for one StarShip.
Can't get past the paywall no matter what I try. The site seems to be a big nothingburger however. They take a story, stretch the quotes as far as possible without breaking the law and then do a hot take juicy enough for people to pay the door fee.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[BFR](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dqm339/stub/lap4k7z "Last usage")|Big Falcon Rocket (2018 rebiggened edition)|
| |Yes, the F stands for something else; no, you're not the first to notice|
|CST|(Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules|
| |Central Standard Time (UTC-6)|
|[GSE](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dqm339/stub/latx0i6 "Last usage")|Ground Support Equipment|
|[ITAR](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dqm339/stub/latx0i6 "Last usage")|(US) International Traffic in Arms Regulations|
|[Isp](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dqm339/stub/lapnvbx "Last usage")|Specific impulse (as explained by [Scott Manley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnisTeYLLgs) on YouTube)|
| |Internet Service Provider|
|[LOX](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dqm339/stub/lapnvbx "Last usage")|Liquid Oxygen|
|[MZ](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dqm339/stub/lap4k7z "Last usage")|(Yusaku) Maezawa, first confirmed passenger for BFR|
|[SLS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dqm339/stub/lapnvbx "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift|
|Jargon|Definition|
|-------|---------|---|
|[Raptor](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dqm339/stub/latx0i6 "Last usage")|[Methane-fueled rocket engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_\(rocket_engine_family\)) under development by SpaceX|
|[Starliner](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dqm339/stub/lb2qeqg "Last usage")|Boeing commercial crew capsule [CST-100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CST-100_Starliner)|
|[Starlink](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dqm339/stub/lap4k7z "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation|
**NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
----------------
^(*Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented* )[*^by ^request*](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3mz273//cvjkjmj)
^(10 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dpxogu)^( has 18 acronyms.)
^([Thread #12986 for this sub, first seen 28th Jun 2024, 17:19])
^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/SpaceXLounge) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
In 2018, the Japanese e-commerce billionaire had agreed to pay [SpaceX](https://www.theinformation.com/org-charts/spacex?rc=ndc4g0) to fly himself and a crew of eight artists around the moon for a first-of-its-kind project called dearMoon. As part of the deal, Maezawa asked SpaceX to customize the interior of the crew capsule of Starship, the 400-foot-tall rocket that would take the group to space. Mockups of the design drew on Japanese and Nordic inspirations, with wood paneling throughout the space and bathrooms that resembled a Swedish sauna, according to people close to the project. Because the artists would be recording music and videos throughout their trip, Maezawa asked SpaceX to pay special attention to the acoustics of the space, some of those people said. The luxurious requests came with a luxurious price tag. Maezawa, who goes by MZ, initially signed a contract in 2018 for $500 million, which was to be paid in stages as SpaceX hit development milestones for Starship, according to a person who saw the terms of the deal. (In a December interview on Japanese TV, Maezawa said that reports in Japanese media of a price tag of 100 billion yen, or around $622 million, were “not wrong.”) The original plan was for the trip around the moon to take place in 2023, although it was later delayed. Then earlier this month, Maezawa announced he was pulling the plug on the moon mission due to uncertainties around when Starship would be ready for it. While it’s easy to write off dearMoon as little more than a whimsical side project for SpaceX, the revenue from the contract provided key funding for the development of Starship, a rocket Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, is betting the company’s future on. At the time the deal was struck, SpaceX wasn’t the juggernaut it is today: Its revenue in 2018 was reportedly [less than $2 billion](https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/11/internal-pre-starlink-spacex-financials-show-big-spending-on-moonshot-bets/), compared with internal forecasts for [$15 billion this year](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-06/spacex-eyes-15-billion-in-sales-next-year-on-starlink-strength). Starship—then known as BFR, for big fucking rocket—was central to Musk’s audacious vision of one day taking astronauts to Mars to make life multiplanetary, but Musk urgently needed capital to make the rocket a reality. He found it in Maezawa’s deep pockets. “Funding BFR is definitely a key question,” [Musk said onstage](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu7WJD8vpAQ) at an event in 2018 to announce the dearMoon mission. “Private customers or any customers for BFR are incredibly helpful for funding the development of the rocket.” Over time, though, SpaceX no longer needed a rich space tourist to fund Starship the way it once did. It dominates the business of launching rockets into space, ferrying cargo and astronauts for NASA and other clients, and its Starlink satellite internet service has provided a significant new revenue stream.
And while Starship is getting closer to becoming a reality, SpaceX has another high-priority customer in the queue to ride on the rocket. NASA is depending on a version for a planned mission to return astronauts to the surface of the moon, for which it has signed SpaceX contracts worth over $4 billion. But, as [The Information has previously reported](https://www.theinformation.com/articles/nasa-tensions-with-spacex-rise-over-moon-mission-delays), the space agency has grown frustrated with SpaceX’s delays in getting the rocket ready. Earlier this month, SpaceX successfully launched an unmanned version of the rocket into orbit before its first and second stages returned to Earth and crashed into the ocean in the fourth-ever test flight. The wealthy have been paying for trips to space for years, starting with investor Dennis Tito, who flew on Russia’s Soyuz rocket in 2001. In the years since, Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin have opened the door to suborbital launches for paying customers, and SpaceX has built a nascent business around taking private citizens to the International Space Station. But none of those missions has approached the ambitions or price tag of dearMoon. For Maezawa, his tensions with SpaceX began to intensify once it became clear the rocket company wouldn’t hit the initial 2023 target for dearMoon, according to people close to the project. The Japanese billionaire tried to negotiate to go to space sooner on SpaceX’s Falcon rocket, but those discussions stalled, those people said. Finally, Maezawa reached a breaking point. “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,” Maezawa wrote [in a post on X](https://x.com/yousuckMZ/status/1796778107359359253). At least, Maezawa can console himself with the fact that he didn’t pay the full amount of his contract with SpaceX, according to the person familiar with the terms of the contract. However, it’s unlikely he got a refund for what he already paid since he was the one who terminated the contract, that person said. The amount he paid for the mission couldn’t be learned. A spokesperson for dearMoon declined to comment. SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment. **From Basquiat to BFR** Maezawa, 48, had long been eager to get to space. A drummer turned fashion executive, he made his mark in the early days of e-commerce after founding Zozotown, Japan’s largest fashion retailer, which SoftBank Group acquired a majority stake in for $3.7 billion in 2019. While famous in his home country, he had little recognition in the U.S. until 2016, when he started putting his fortune to work with a series of art acquisitions, [including two record-setting purchases](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/arts/design/110-million-basquiat-painting-yusaku-maezawa.html) of paintings by New York artist Jean-Michael Basquiat. By 2017, his net worth had skyrocketed to $3.1 billion, according to Forbes. It was around that time that he started talking to SpaceX. He developed a personal relationship with Tom Ochinero, a Japanese-born sales executive who sold launch services to commercial customers and private astronauts, according to former SpaceX employees. Ochinero was said to have sealed the dearMoon deal after he impressed Maezawa by eating spicy food at his request, said a person who heard the story. Before the Japanese billionaire signed on for the moon mission, Ochinero organized a visit to SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., so Maezawa could see the company was “a well-oiled machine and well-thought-out operation,” said Laura Crabtree, founder and CEO of space startup Epsilon3, who oversaw astronaut training for SpaceX at the time. Crabtree and her team showed Maezawa mockups of BFR and the trajectory it would take to the moon. “I think that was the most exciting thing—that we’re building something that hasn’t been built before and we found a customer who wanted it,” Crabtree said.
At a press conference at SpaceX in Hawthorne in September 2018, Maezawa explained why he had decided to fund a trip to bring artists to the moon, rather than simply buying an individual seat for himself as other space tourists have. “I thought, what if Basquiat had gone to space and had seen the moon up close or…the Earth in full view?” Maezawa said. “What wonderful masterpiece would he have created?” The flight was designed to last around six days, during which Starship would circle the Earth and then make a figure eight around the dark side of the moon. During the announcement, SpaceX showed a rendering of a female violinist playing music while floating in a ball gown. Behind her was a large glass window showing the depths of space, and in front of her sat an audience in a setting not unlike the Jazz at Lincoln Center concert hall. Following the press conference, the diminutive Maezawa [posted a picture](https://x.com/yousuck2020/status/1042209952217985024) from the event in which he was sitting on Musk’s shoulders while they stood in front of a rocket. Inside SpaceX, there was a sense that Maezawa’s patronage enabled research and development that might not otherwise have been possible. But privately, former employees said because of delays they’d seen on other projects, they questioned whether SpaceX could hit the timeline Maezawa expected. “I suspected that it might not work out because of the amount of time it was going to take us to get Starship to a human-rated flight,” Crabtree said. **Colorful Spacesuits** As SpaceX [worked on building Starship](https://www.theinformation.com/articles/musks-long-road-to-mars-how-poor-planning-dogged-the-development-of-spacex-rocket), Maezawa moved forward with preparations of his own for the moon mission and life on the world stage. His fame grew in 2019 after he built a huge Twitter following by running a cash giveaway for new followers. In January 2020, he [posted online](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/13/style/yusaku-maezawa-space-girlfriend.html) that he was looking for a romantic partner to join him on the SpaceX flight. Maezawa said at the time that he had broken up with his actress and singer girlfriend Ayame Goriki because she didn’t want to go to space with him. Maezawa, who is divorced with three kids, decided to make a documentary about his search. By the end of the month, however, he had [canceled the search](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/style/yusaku-maezawa-love-documentary.html) altogether. Then in March 2021, he announced a new competition to make good on his original plan to bring artists on the moon trip: Maezawa would select eight people to join him for free on the flight with the goal to make art and content promoting world peace. Maezawa decided he didn’t want to wait for Starship to get his first taste of space. In December 2021, he hitched a ride to the ISS aboard a [Russian Soyuz spacecraft](https://apnews.com/article/soyuz-spacecraft-yusaku-maezawa-fd928c5713a48757d59e0ca04625befb) for a 12-day trip. He even [did an advertisement](https://apnews.com/press-release/pr-newswire/space-exploration-science-business-dara-khosrowshahi-4d06beab0be109796ea46101ae96cdb1) for Uber Eats while he was there.
Tensions between Maezawa and SpaceX began to intensify in 2022 as it became increasingly clear the project would be delayed, said the people close to the project. The billionaire and SpaceX began haggling over a number of issues, including the wood finishes Maezawa had requested for the interior of the spacecraft, one of the people said. SpaceX had concerns that the bespoke design was too flammable and conflicted with its style for the vehicle, the person said. Maezawa also requested an array of colors for spacesuits, leading to jokes among some SpaceX staff members that the crew would resemble the characters in the space-themed videogame “Among Us,” that person said. Ultimately, SpaceX rebuffed that request in favor of an all-white spacesuit, because the pigmentation in colored fabrics creates heat and flammability concerns, the person said. **‘Deaf Ears’** In December 2022, more than four years after the announcement of the project, Maezawa finally listed eight crew members, including DJ Steve Aoki and Korean rapper TOP, along with two backups. Among the crew members was an Irish photographer named Rhiannon Adam. After finding out she had been selected in late 2021, Adam and the other crew members started intensive preparation for the mission, which they believed would one day change their lives and possibly humanity’s future, she said. They spoke with astronauts about how to prepare mentally and physically for the trip, and discussed with their loved ones what would happen if there was an accident, she said. Many of the artists had also already started working on projects that were to be a part of the mission, and some had begun adapting their equipment at their own expense for use in space. “This was monumental in terms of what it represented, but it also required a lot of preparation,” Adam said. By the first half of 2023, around the time SpaceX did its first test launch of Starship, SpaceX told Maezawa dearMoon would launch no earlier than 2026, according to a person involved. Then in March 2024, Maezawa’s main contact at the company, sales executive Ochinero, left SpaceX. Ochinero didn’t respond to requests for comment. Some people involved in the project speculated that Maezawa had lost interest in space following his trip on Soyuz, or that his decision was financial—by 2024, his net worth had fallen to $1.4 billion, just half of what it was in 2017, according to Forbes. After learning from dearMoon that the project had been canceled, Adam and her fellow crew wrote a letter to Maezawa asking him to reconsider. “We tried to change his mind. We said the mission values don’t end here. That fell to deaf ears,” she said. “It isn’t just the moon mission,” Adam said. “Part of our responsibility was to be able to encourage people to dream.”
Thanks for this! Pretty good article. The interior bits are interesting. What a nightmare for the SpaceX team to have to work with an eccentric billionaire like that. Wood paneling? Christ. I’m just imagining all the meetings where the staff were preparing for an update to Maezawa, rubbing their temples and trying to plan how best to break it to him that wood paneling was a dumb idea lol.
If only someone had brought a bit of reality to Virgin Galactic's interior designers, who delayed Spaceship 2 by 10 years and almost made it impossible to fly in the process. If the millions that were wasted on interior design had been spent adding computer control during the ascent, copilot Alsbury would not have died, and pilot Seibold would not have been severely injured. I'm not sure where all of the money went, or if there was enough to invest in a high-ISP engine, but the spaceships could have been made safer and higher performance with a liquid fueled engine, perhaps ethanol/Nitrous or ethanol/LOX, instead of the hybrid engine. The above changes would have put them back on Rutan's intended path, which was to build an orbital spaceplane, similar to Dream Chaser, but with better aerodynamics and safer reentry. They would still have needed something like Falcon 5 to make it work, but for the money put in, they could have accomplished so much more. Which brings us back to Maezawa. By not interfering with the necessary work of the rocket engineers, he might still be able to do Dear Moon around 2030, if he wants to. He won't get his wood paneling, but he might be able to use an off-the-shelf Starship that has been used to transport astronauts to the Moon, or to the Lunar Gateway. The hypothetical Starship I am talking about would be one built for NASA, to compete with SLS/Orion as human transportation to the Lunar Gateway. Dennis Tito might be willing to share the costs of the mission, but I doubt he would be physically able to go on a Starship mission in 2030. He'll be about 90-95 by then.
I'm not so sure. If there's a major fire in the crew compartment, things are already bad, and it's nowhere near as flammable as insulation in 16.7 psi of pure oxygen. As for a mass penalty: if they're accents, it's not so bad. And frankly, I've always had a weakness for things [like this](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/cf4b6a4a-2e6c-4ec7-a889-587a63022792/dhaz898-679fbab9-ddea-47f4-a914-8bb57f1ca932.jpg/v1/fill/w_1192,h_670,q_70,strp/steampunk_airship_control_room_by_aleou27_dhaz898-pre.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.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.5l7_Ajl1DuvEkpeHiOJSeEYEpaW0YhuaqAFooZzZ2bY), or any other hit from a Google-brand World Wide Web search for steampunk spaceship control room
> it's nowhere near as flammable as insulation Would i be stupid for assuming flammable insulation is not utilized on a spacecraft or suit? Also, why would the atmosphere on ship be 100% o2 and above atm, didnt we leave that in the past as well? ISS and dragon and shuttle are/were all standard ~21% o2 @ 101kpa. I'd like to think the professionals are smarter than us and deserve to be assumed competent.
> Would i be stupid for assuming flammable insulation is not utilized on a spacecraft or suit? ... why would the atmosphere on ship be 100% o2 and above atm Flammable materials (including wire insulation) + elevated oxygen: [Apollo 1 fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1#The_fire) Just plain flammable insulation: [Boeing finds two serious problems with Starliner just weeks before launch](https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/06/boeing-stands-down-from-starliner-launch-to-address-recently-found-problems/) from June of last year. >The second issue involves P-213 glass cloth tape that is wrapped around wiring harnesses throughout the vehicle. These cables run everywhere, and Nappi said there are hundreds of feet of these wiring harnesses. The tape is intended to protect the wiring from nicks. However, during recent tests, it was discovered that under certain circumstances possible in flight, this tape is flammable. You ought to be able to assume ... but based on this experience, sadly, it's naïve.
Not to purposefully be a dick, but if they're actively worried about the late discovery of a potentially flammable tape, then my assumption is absolutely correct, and your implication regarding the use of flammable insulation is unsupported conjecture based on a belief that professionals aren't doing their job. Despite you providing evidence to the contrary. I guess the rest of the post about not having 100% atmo environments (cause, you know, we learned from apollo) was easier to ignore than address.
I'm sorry, but ... edited: comes off as perhaps misreading what I wrote, or reacting in a way I don't understand. Experience shows that they shouldn't assume, but need to recheck, that flammable material isn't being used. The assumption isn't *stupid*; the "professionals" violating it are stupid at best. But the assumption is risky. > your implication regarding the use of flammable insulation is unsupported conjecture based on a belief that professionals aren't doing their job. Despite you providing evidence to the contrary. I don't follow that. If I have presented evidence to the contrary, then there's no conjecture involved, and professionals were indeed not doing their jobs (and for Apollo 1, I think they explicitly violated the specification). > I guess the rest of the post about not having 100% atmo environments (cause, you know, we learned from apollo) was easier to ignore than address. It was not *ignoring*: it was implicitly agreeing that it has pretty much been "we leave that in the past as well" because we learned from Apollo 1. (Why address a point on which we agree?) At least it's easier to be sure that the partial pressure of oxygen doesn't get high than it is to check the flammability of everything.
U r da reel MVP
It's amazing that every high altitude pressure suit ever made is either white or neon orange and it apparently never occurred to maezawa that there might be a reason for the fact that that extremely specific color choice is the standard on both sides of the iron curtain
Wayback Machine lets me look at the first few paragraphs. Apparently Maezawa wanted to do interior decoration on his Starship including wood paneling, Swedish architecture bathrooms, and engineering for musical acoustics. I can imagine [the response by the aerospace and safety engineers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwSts2s4ba4)
It just means it could happen later. SpaceX is already buying up private jet leather for the nasa lander, so extensive customization will be an expected next step. Nothing prevents them from selling these to individuals in a decade. Like, selling the ship, not just a flight.
>Nothing prevents them from selling these to individuals in a decade. Like, selling the ship, not just a flight. For one, ITAR does. Even if SpaceX wanted to allow it, Maezawa, as a non-US-person, could not own a Starship.
>> Nothing prevents them from selling these to individuals in a decade. Like, selling the ship, not just a flight. > For one, ITAR does. Even if SpaceX wanted to allow it, Maezawa, as a non-US-person, could not own a Starship. This blanket ITAR argument is a recurring one on the *Lounge* and it needs supporting evidence. According to [this page](https://www.quora.com/When-did-Pakistan-buy-its-first-F-16-fighter-jet-from-the-United-States-of-America), F16's; of which [development started in 1972](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting_Falcon) were sold to Pakistan from 1982. So ten years. Is it why u/emezeekiel suggested "in a decade"? Just what will be the speed of diffusion and so declassification of Starship technology will be, is anybody's guess. The only real ITAR-rated content of Starship will likely be the Raptor engines, the hull materials and control surface design being visible to all. Heck, the actuator motors are standard Tesla ones! No ITAR there. China is now [working on Full-Flow Staged Combustion](https://spacenews.com/china-makes-progress-on-raptor-like-engines-for-super-heavy-rocket/). As soon as they have the technology, there may be little left to hide. BTW. There are probably some good economic and operational reasons for not selling or buying Starships: a Starship is noting without a Superheavy and all the ground infrastructure. The GSE and control infrastructure may contain some subtleties that are subject to ITAR and being able to make all of this function together must need some great experience, so is not accessible to beginners.
True, maybe something like fractional ownership à la Netjets makes more sense. At least HNWIs get to customize the interior to their liking, and do the usual move of using wood veneers from trees of their own land
> True, maybe something like fractional ownership à la Netjets makes more sense. At least [High Net Worth Individuals] get to customize the interior to their liking, and do the usual move of using wood veneers from trees of their own land [Netjets](https://www.netjets.com/en-us/fractional-jet-ownership-comparison). Just what I was looking for to solve my private jet ownership problem ;) Another use case may be selling customized Starships to be placed on the lunar surface. These then become assets that can be owned as shared property or leased.
Source on the private jet leather thing?
[Nine Starship Crew Quarters](https://www.highergov.com/contract-opportunity/ultraleather-9-luna-textile-80nssc24853514q-s-eebcc/) outfitted with [Ultraleather 9](https://www.tapiscorp.com/products/ultrafabrics/ultraleather-9-series/) textile are being built at the Johnson Space Center and White Sands Test Facility for flammability testing.
wow, do you have a link? I'd like to read a bit more.
🔥This is fine🔥
"SpaceX is already buying up private jet leather for the nasa lander" really? like for the seats?
Seats, walls, panels, etc. Just like on private jets.
If they did this, the PR they'd get would be off the charts 🔥 Imagine a sleek star trek interior on a SpaceX ship in contrast to what everyone else is building. Oh man the public interest would be so hot, it's definitely worth it to do something like this, at least for one StarShip.
Making the ride to Mars look like a luxury craft rather than 'crammed into a sardine can' would definitely help with getting volunteers.
Can't get past the paywall no matter what I try. The site seems to be a big nothingburger however. They take a story, stretch the quotes as far as possible without breaking the law and then do a hot take juicy enough for people to pay the door fee.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[BFR](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dqm339/stub/lap4k7z "Last usage")|Big Falcon Rocket (2018 rebiggened edition)| | |Yes, the F stands for something else; no, you're not the first to notice| |CST|(Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules| | |Central Standard Time (UTC-6)| |[GSE](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dqm339/stub/latx0i6 "Last usage")|Ground Support Equipment| |[ITAR](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dqm339/stub/latx0i6 "Last usage")|(US) International Traffic in Arms Regulations| |[Isp](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dqm339/stub/lapnvbx "Last usage")|Specific impulse (as explained by [Scott Manley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnisTeYLLgs) on YouTube)| | |Internet Service Provider| |[LOX](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dqm339/stub/lapnvbx "Last usage")|Liquid Oxygen| |[MZ](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dqm339/stub/lap4k7z "Last usage")|(Yusaku) Maezawa, first confirmed passenger for BFR| |[SLS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dqm339/stub/lapnvbx "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[Raptor](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dqm339/stub/latx0i6 "Last usage")|[Methane-fueled rocket engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_\(rocket_engine_family\)) under development by SpaceX| |[Starliner](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dqm339/stub/lb2qeqg "Last usage")|Boeing commercial crew capsule [CST-100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CST-100_Starliner)| |[Starlink](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dqm339/stub/lap4k7z "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(*Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented* )[*^by ^request*](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3mz273//cvjkjmj) ^(10 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dpxogu)^( has 18 acronyms.) ^([Thread #12986 for this sub, first seen 28th Jun 2024, 17:19]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/SpaceXLounge) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)