Since space travel became a thing, millions of people have dreamed about that countdown from 10 to lift off.

Until now, the average person couldn’t jump on a rocket and orbit the earth, but all that is set to change.

Except for the ‘average’ part. You have to be pretty loaded to score a tourist spot on a spaceship.

Lucky for Yusaku Maezawa, money is not an issue. As such, reports Forbes, SpaceX has announced that he will be the first paying passenger on its BFR spacecraft destined for a trip around the moon.

The spaceship consists of a massive rocket booster set to out-power any that has ever been built before, and a towering spacecraft, nicknamed BFS for Big Falcon Spaceship, that will vault out of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Yusaku Maezawa (below) is the founder of an online fashion empire called Zozotown. He is also big in Japan as a rock musician and, most recently, as a high-rolling art collector.

He recently dropped a cool $110,5 million on a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting at Sotheby’s in New York, so you know he has cash to burn.

Back to the space trip – and this is where it gets interesting. Maezawa doesn’t plan on going alone:

Maezawa stated that he didn’t just buy one seat on the trip. He bought an entire spaceship, and he intends to people it with 6-8 artists from different countries and representing different styles of art. The goal of Maezawa’s project is for the artists to be inspired by the journey and create art about it when they go back to Earth.

“I hope that this project will inspire the dreamer within each of us,” Maezawa wrote on the website for the project, #DearMoon.

The exact price that Maezawa paid has not been released, although he says that it will be free for the accompanying artists.

SpaceX had previously announced in 2017 that two then-unnamed passengers had booked passage for a Lunar flyby in a Falcon Heavy rocket that was to launch in 2018. Musk revealed that Maezawa was one of the original customers, but that the Falcon Heavy would only be able to take 2 people around the Moon. BFR, in contrast, will have room for many more people.

The trip, according to SpaceX, will take four to five days, and will take its passengers roughly 200 kilometres from the moon.

CNN writes that Maezawa’s net worth is an estimated at $2,9 billion. He’ll be selecting his fellow passengers himself, and already has one in mind.

“If you hear from me, please say yes,” the Japanese tycoon pleaded. He also encouraged Musk to join the mission.

“As far as me going, I’m not sure,” Musk responded. “Maybe we’ll both be on it.”

I’m not sure that I’d want Elon on a spaceship with me, although maybe they’ll make him leave the Ambien behind, and that’s good for everyone involved.

The spaceship that Maezawa and his team of artists will be boarding will start making short test flights next year. The rocket should reach orbit for the first time in 2020, and will be ready to deliver cargo to the moon and Mars by 2022.

I can paint. Where do I sign up?

[sources:cnn&forbes]