Japan fashion guru Maezawa lands first SpaceX moon flight

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The 42-year-old Maezawa is one of Japan’s most colorful executives and is a regular fixture in the country’s gossipy weeklies with his collection of foreign and Japanese art, fast cars and celebrity girlfriend.

Maezawa made his fortune by founding the wildly popular shopping site Zozotown. His company Zozo, officially called Start Today Co Ltd, also offers a made-to-measure service using a polka dot bodysuit, the Zozosuit..

In a country known for its staid corporate culture, the businessman is one of a small group of founders widely recognised by the general public – with others including SoftBank Group Corp’s Masayoshi Son and Fast Retailing’s Tadashi Yanai.

With SpaceX, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and entrepreneur Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic battling it out to launch private-sector spacecraft, Maezawa will join a growing list of celebrities and the ultra-rich who have secured seats on flights offered on the under-development vessels.

Those who have signed up to fly on Virgin Galactic sub-orbital missions include actor Leonardo DiCaprio and pop star Justin Bieber. A 90-minute flight costs $250,000.

Short sightseeing trips to space aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket are likely to cost around $200,000 to $300,000, at least to start, Reuters reported in July.

Maezawa has already shown his penchant for fast machines, splashing out on vehicles including the Bugatti Chiron sports car and the Mercedes-Maybach G650 Landaulet SUV. And last month he tweeted that his new jet’s interior is being fashioned by luxury label Hermes.

A jaunt around the moon will provide welcome publicity for his company Zozo, which has ambitious overseas sale targets to be driven by its custom-made private clothing line. The company’s shares fell as much as 4.7 percent after the news before recovering.

The diminutive Maezawa, who as a young man struggled to find clothes that fit, hopes to revolutionize the fashion industry through his Zozosuit, which once donned allows users to upload their body measurements and order a growing number of made-to-measure items.

SpaceX has already upended the space industry with its relatively low-cost reusable Falcon 9 rockets. The company has completed more than 50 successful Falcon launches and snagged billions of dollars’ worth of contracts, including deals with NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense.

When asked about Boeing Co’s CEO Dennis Muilenburg’s prediction that the first humans will be carried to Mars on a Boeing rocket, Musk responded, “Game on,” to the sound of cheers from employees assembled at the event. 

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