Billionaire fashion entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa has canceled his much-buzzed-about space tourism flight, citing readiness problems with SpaceX's Starship rocket., the tourism voyage, dubbed "dearMoon," planned to carry Maezawa and ten other space tourists — a group that notably included— around the Moon and back to Earth. Should the trip have come to pass, it would have been the first private circumlunar trip in history.
But pass it did not. Over the weekend, the official dearMoon account on X-formerly-Twitter released a statement announcing the "" decision to cancel the trip. Meanwhile, from his personal account on the same platform, Maezawa placed the blame squarely on SpaceX and Musk's shoulders. "I signed the contract in 2018 based on the assumption that dearMoon would launch by the end of 2023,"the Japanese billionaire. "It's a developmental project so it is what it is, but it is still uncertain as to when Starship can launch."
"I feel terrible making the crew members wait longer, hence the difficult decision to cancel at this point in time," he continued in the thread, and "I apologize to those who were excited for this project to happen."This wouldn't be the first time Muskian project timelines didn't pan out.
Anyway. Condolences are with Maezawa and his fellow space enthusiasts, as it's unclear whether there was a refund policy.