SpaceX's billionaire moon tourist announces detour to Space Station

Yulia Peresild is in a bid to be the first actor in space. Photo / Valery Sharifulin, Getty Images

The Japanese fashion tycoon who's booked a SpaceX ride to the moon is going to try out the International Space Station first.

"Going to the ISS before the Moon," Yusaku Maezawa announced Thursday via Twitter.

Maezawa has bought two seats on a Russian Soyuz capsule. He'll blast off in December on the 12-day mission with his production assistant and a professional cosmonaut.

"I'm so curious, 'What's life like in space?' So, I am planning to find out on my own and share with the world," Maezawa said in a statement.

Yusaku Maezawa has bought two seats on a Russian Soyuz capsule. Photo / Koji Sasahara, AP

He'll be the first person to pay his own way to the space station in more than a decade, according to Virginia-based Space Adventures, which brokered the deal. A Space Adventures spokeswoman declined to divulge the cost. The company has sent seven other tourists to the space station, from 2001 to 2009.

Maezawa's trip to the moon aboard Elon Musk's Starship is tentatively scheduled for 2023. He'll fly around the moon — not land — with eight contest winners.

Watch this video to learn more about the selection process. It also contains a special message from @elonmusk #dearMoon

↓Check the full versionhttps://t.co/i3ucR6BB44 pic.twitter.com/B3d8g0JvvP

— Yusaku Maezawa (MZ) (@yousuckMZ) March 2, 2021

Maezawa, 45, who founded an online retail clothing business, will be joined by photographer and assistant Yozo Hirano. They will be escorted by Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin, who's spent nearly a year aboard the space station on two separate missions. The launch is scheduled for 8 December from Kazakhstan.

Space Race 2: The sequel

Thursday's announcement comes amid a flurry of private space initiatives.

The Russian Space Agency announced Thursday that a Russian actress and movie director will launch to the space station in October for filming. The Space Agency announced a team of two actor Yulia Peresild, 36, and director Klim Shipenko, 37, would be flown to the ISS. The movie is tentatively titled "Challenge."

Aptly named, the Russian movie is slated to start filming ahead of a rival US production. Last year, former NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine announced that it was working with Tom Cruise to make a feature in zero gravity on the space station.

The International Space Station (ISS) above the Cook Strait. Photo / File, NASA

In January, the first private mission to the space station from the US will bring three businessmen — from the US, Canada and Israel — who are paying about $55 million apiece. They will launch aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule from Kennedy Space Center and will be accompanied by a former NASA astronaut who now works for Houston-based Axiom Space, which arranged the deal. The company plans about two private missions to the space station a year.

Before the space station visits, SpaceX will launch its first private spaceflight with four people on board, including tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, who purchased the mission. They will spend three days orbiting Earth in September.

"This truly is a renaissance in US human spaceflight," NASA's director of commercial spaceflight, Phil McAlister, told reporters Monday. "I think that's the perfect word for what we're experiencing."

- Associated Press, with additional reporting