Steve Aoki among crew for SpaceX's first civilian trip to the moon

Next year Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa will take eight passengers on the first ever private trip around the moon, and on Friday (9 December) he announced that Steve Aoki and T.O.P. of K-pop group Big Bang have been selected.

As Billboard reports, the other guests on the space voyage will include filmmaker Brendan Hall, YouTuber Tim Dodd, British photographer Karim Illiya, Indian actor Dev Joshi, Czech artist Yemi AD and Irish photographer Rhiannon Adam. American Olympic snowboarder Kaitlyn Farrington and Japanese dancer Miyu are being kept on the list as backups.

Aoki said of being selected, "Since I was a little I was dreaming of going to the moon. It’s becoming more and more real every day. Still hard to believe but very excited for this amazing once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. To the moon!"

Meet the dearMoon CrewSteve Aoki

“Since I was a little I was dreaming of going to the moon. It's becoming more and more real every day. Still hard to believe but very excited for this amazing once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. To the moon!”@steveaokihttps://t.co/FgjD9ZbSFX

— dearMoon (@dearmoonproject) December 9, 2022

The trip will see the SpaceX rocket circling the moon for three days. Although the passengers won't be able to actually land on the moon, they'll be able to see it from 200km away.