A lot of us, at some point in time, have dreamt of going in the space. Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to become an astronaut. However, that faded away rather quickly as I realized that one has to study a lot for that. Later, when I commenced my first air travel, I remember it was from Jammu to Kashmir back in 2005, I thought why can’t we just go to space like this? In other words, why isn’t there an inter-planet airline like Jet Airways or Indigo etc.? I was naïve and had no clue about the intricacy involved in all this. However, our man, Elon Musk starts thinking from where we generally quit. This time, in collaboration with a Japanese entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa, he is planning the world’s first civilian trip to moon and back.
Sounds interesting? Hell yeah. Let’s quickly explore what this is all about. How can you sign up? What will it cost?
Seriously?
In 2023, mankind will head towards moon yet again in it’s first civilian mission called “dearMoon“. This mission will be spearheaded by Japanese entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa (a.k.a. MZ). He announced this mission two years ago and has finally revealed that he would be using SpaceX’s Starship on this journey. And guess what? He would select 8 volunteers from the world to accompany him on this journey of a lifetime.
These 8 volunteers would have a FULLY PAID trip from earth to moon and back. Talk about holiday packages. There will 10-12 people in all in the mission out of which 8 will be crowd sourced. Yusaku Maezawa mentions that he has purchased all the seats, so this would be a private trip of sorts.
The Journey would be 6 days long wherein 3 days would be required to go to the moon and loop around it and remaining 3 days would be taken to return back.
Who is Yusaku Maezawa?
An excerpt from the Aljazeera reads:
Maezawa, known for his eccentric comments and extravagant lifestyle, including a penchant for pricey art, was last year valued at about $1.9bn, making him one of Japan’s richest people.
He made his fortune as founder of the online fashion store Zozo, which he sold to Yahoo! Japan in 2019.
But Why You?
Of course it’s not going to be your budget trip from Delhi to Bombay. Then why is Yusaku taking 8 people along with him on this journey? Maezawa explains that two years ago, he had thought of taking artists on this journey with him. However, since then, that plan has evolved as he couldn’t define what he meant by artists. The more he thought, ambiguity increased. So he decided to open this for everyone and include people from diverse backgrounds in his journey.
Criteria for Selection:
Yusaku mentions two criterion to decide if you are really ready to be a part of the giant leap of mankind.
A. By going to space, you should be able to push the envelope of whatever job/activity/business you are in, to help people and greater society in some way. He would want someone with that kind of potential to join him.
Are you pleased and satisfied with what you are doing in life? Will you be able to do something better and bigger by going to space? If yes, you are up for the mission.
B. You should be willing and able to support the other crew members who share similar aspirations.
These will be the key traits of someone who would be selected for this life changing project: dearmoon.
Why Only Moon?
So when Meazawa is asked why does he want to travel to moon, he gives three reasons for it. These are something each one of us could relate to:
A. He says curiosity is his biggest driver. He wants to visit a place he has been watching since childhood to see what is it really like?
B. He wants to be reminded how beautiful the planet we live on is. He wants to see the blue sphere from a distance to appreciate it’s beauty.
C. He wants a reality check to tell himself how small and insignificant he is. That will keep him grounded. And I totally agree. I don’t think any other experience in our lifetime would be able to create an impact of that level. This would also help one to work harder and to grow more.
Is it Safe?
Elon Musk has mentioned that his Starship would’ve completed many round trips to the moon before they are ready for this mission in 2023. He claims that everything right now is on track and he is quite confident that he will be able to turn things around by the deadline. This is no advice but given the kind of projects Elon Musk has done in the past, I trust him completely.
How to Register:
Okay, enough of context setting, let’s find out how to register for this trip. So there are 5 steps for getting shortlisted in the top 8 crew members. These steps are as follows:
Step 1: Pre-Registration:
Simply head over to dearmoon.earth and press join the crew batch as shown in the image below.
You would be redirected to a form that seeks some basic profile information like your name, country and picture. Once you complete the registration, make sure you follow all social media accounts of Yusaku Maezawa because that’s where he will publish all the important information.
After a successful registration, you would be issued a welcome certificate for this mission.
The preregistration needs to be completed by March 14th, 8:30 PM (IST).
As per the website (dearmoon.earth), the next steps don’t have much detail as of now. However, you can get an overview of what’s next from the image below.
Conclusion:
I have already signed up for the project dearmoon. And it is not one of those “let’s see” kind of moments. I really want to be a part of the history and I’d love to get selected. Just imagine the leverage I’d get in terms of vacay goals. This little trip is going to be a really tough one to compete with.
What do you think about this? Are you planning to register?
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Until next time..
