Dear Lunatics,
I can feel tonight’s full moon glaring down at me as I ask, once again, for your understanding: I’m still not well enough to write a satisfying dispatch.
I feel guilty for letting my crew down.
Though I take some comfort in the fact that I’m not the only one who is pleading for an extension.
NASA has just pushed back the launch dates for the upcoming moon missions.
Artemis II, a lunar flyby that was suppose to launch in November 2024, is now scheduled for April 2026.
Artemis III, which will finally return astronauts to the lunar surface, has been bumped to mid-2027.
And last week, NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel raised serious concerns about the technical risks of Artemis III.
Further postponements can be safely anticipated.
Of course, no one is more disappointed about recent spacefaring delays than Yusaku Maezawa.
Maezawa was slated to make the first private trip around the Moon aboard a SpaceX’s Starship. He’d selected eight artists, including a photographer, filmmaker, and K-pop star, to round out the crew.
But after years spent waiting in vain for SpaceX’s Starship to be deemed spaceworthy, Maezawa recently made the heartbreaking decision to scrap the voyage.
According to a statement, Maezawa could no longer, in good conscience, string along his handpicked crew, who had been waiting with bags packed.
Reporting around the abandoned voyage has struck an elegiac tone. The eight artists are understandably crestfallen. Maezawa himself seems devastated.
In a way, Maezawa’s expedition has been cancelled twice.
Initially, he wasn’t going to fill the seats on his invitation-only cosmic excursion with artists.
He had a different idea—one that everyone seems to have forgotten.
But I haven’t.
I wrote about it five years ago on the night of the Snow Moon 2020.
In case you were not one of the 16 people who read that post, I’ll share it below.
(Oh, and happy early Valentine’s Day. Hopefully, on the next full moon, I’ll be well enough to take you all out on a proper date.)
FEB 09, 2020
Last month, the Japanese fashion tycoon and eccentric billionaire Yusaku Maezawa inaugurated a worldwide competition to find a romantic partner who would accompany him on a trip around the Moon.
Maezawa, who has booked the first private passenger flight on Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket for an undisclosed amount, explained that he didn’t want to make the journey alone.
“As feelings of loneliness and emptiness slowly begin to surge upon me, there’s one thing that I think about: Continuing to love one woman,” he wrote. “I want to find a ‘life partner.’ With that future partner of mine, I want to shout our love and world peace from outer space.”
Applicants were required to be over 20 years old, female, and in possession of a “bright and positive” personality.
27,722 women applied.
Maezawa planned to announce his final decision by the end of March, and the pair would begin their life together by preparing for liftoff on Elon Musk’s Big Falcon Rocket in 2023.
But then something unexpected happened.
After spending less than two weeks reviewing candidates, Maezawa called off the competition.
He gave no explanation beyond citing “personal reasons” and “mixed feelings.”
“To think that 27,722 women, with earnest intentions and courage, had used their precious time to apply makes me feel extremely remorseful to conclude and inform everyone with this selfish decision of mine,” he tweeted.
The world is left wondering, what made Maezawa change his mind?
I have three theories.
1. He met someone.
2. As a capricious billionaire, he's decided to acquire a girlfriend in a more conventional manner (such as having one built in a subterranean lab).
3. The competition was conducted, but not one of the nearly 28,000 applicants met his expectations. If Maezawa had dedicated 16 hours a day to reviewing applicants, swiping from profile to profile on a 10-foot iPad, he could have lingered for approximately 24.93 seconds on each smiling face, asking himself the same two questions we all ask ourselves when evaluating a potential spouse:
Is this my soulmate?
And
Is this someone with whom I would carpool to the Moon?
In the end, I sincerely hope Yusaku Maezawa finds the love he’s looking for.
There’s something endearing about a billionaire spending his wealth on romance.
Especially when you consider that November’s Presidential election may well come down to two American billionaires who are no longer content to buy influence over the White House, but who need to live in it, too.
Yusaku Maezawa doesn’t want to be president.
He just wants to make out behind the moon.
See you on the Worm Moon!
—WD
Will, even when you’re under the weather, your notes are a delight. Hope you’re feeling better soon!
I am so relieved to have received this new post from you, Will. I watched the golden moon rise last evening from behind the hills on the eastern horizon, and started worrying about you.
Would you be well enough to write a post? Shouldn’t I have already sent you an encouraging message? And so on.
But the full moon just rose and rose in that slightly smug manner it has, shrinking imperceptibly as it rose (a very clever trick), and I resigned myself to waiting.
I am so very relieved to get this message, though.
Next month we will have a total eclipse of the moon (from just after 8 pm on Friday 14 March). We at Wellington Astronomical Society are planning an observing event outside Space Place in Kelburn, on a stretch of grass between the Dominion Observatory and the Thomas King Observatory. Bring binoculars. If the weather holds, it will be spectacular (and also warm).