Chinese-born cryptocurrency investor Chun Wang has become the latest deep-pocketed space enthusiast to set his sights on a trip around Mars. But first, he wants to take a ride around the moon on SpaceX’s Starship. And SpaceX is willing to work with him.
Wang shared his ambition today during a SpaceX webcast focusing on the first attempt to launch a next-generation Starship V3 rocket from SpaceX’s Starbase in Texas for a test flight. The launch attempt had to be called off due to technical difficulties with ground equipment, but SpaceX could try again as soon as May 22.
During a lull in the countdown, the webcast team cut to an interview with Wang, who was speaking from Bouvet Island, a rugged nature reserve in the South Atlantic Ocean that’s been called the world’s most remote island. It was an apt setting for a conversation about Wang’s out-of-this-world idea.
Wang already qualifies as a space traveler: Last year, he headed up a privately funded mission that sent him and three other crew members into polar orbit in a SpaceX Dragon capsule for three and a half days. Today, SpaceX launch commentator Dan Huot said Wang is already back in line to take on “the first interplanetary mission on a Starship,” even though the rocket is still in testing mode and hasn’t yet made a single orbit around Earth.
“It’s going to be a flyby mission of Mars,” Wang said. “A lot of people are talking about how Mars will be like: ‘We’re going to fly to Mars, we’re going to land on Mars, we’re going to build a city on Mars.’ But let’s get this started with a flyby. … It will light the fire. It will ignite the imagination, and it will build the momentum.”
No timetable was given for the mission, but SpaceX said the round trip would take two years. Wang wasn’t worried about getting bored during the cruise to and from the Red Planet. “This is actually my style of fireworks,” he said. “I can stare at the map view on airplanes all the way from takeoff to landing. So I think I will enjoy the trip.”
Wang was born in China in 1982 but became a citizen of Malta in 2023. He played a role in founding two cryptocurrency ventures, F2Pool and Stakefish, and his net worth was said to be somewhere around $300 million as of last year.
As a warmup for the Mars flyby, Wang said he intends to join California engineer/investor Dennis Tito and his wife, Akiko Tito, on a Starship trip around the moon. SpaceX says that weeklong mission would come within 200 kilometers (120 miles) of the lunar surface and advance the development of Starship’s systems for deep-space, long-duration missions.
“Even though it’s just a flyby, it will try a lot of things that have never been attempted before,” Wang said of the round-the-moon mission.
Dennis Tito, 85, announced his plan for the trip to the moon and back in 2022, but there hasn’t been much word since then about preparations for the mission. Back in 2001, Tito became the first American space tourist when he rode a Russian Soyuz craft into orbit for a six-day stay on the International Space Station.
In 2013, Tito proposed a 501-day mission that would send a man and a woman around Mars. At first, he suggested that he’d be willing to fund at least part of the mission, but a couple of months later he said that NASA would have to take the lead role in what he called a “philanthropic partnership with government.” NASA demurred.
The next billionaire to look into leading a space mission beyond Earth orbit was Yusaku Maezawa, who made his fortune after founding Zozotown, Japan’s largest online fashion mall. Maezawa teamed up with SpaceX in 2018 on a plan that would involve sending the billionaire and a crew of artists and performers around the moon on Starship. As part of the deal, Maezawa committed to paying SpaceX an undisclosed amount to support Starship’s development. But he canceled his plans in 2024, citing delays in SpaceX’s timeline.
“It’s a developmental project, so it is what it is, but it is still uncertain as to when Starship can launch,” Maezawa said at the time. “I can’t plan my future in this situation, and I feel terrible making the crew members wait longer, hence the difficult decision to cancel.”
Since then, NASA sent four astronauts around the moon for the Artemis 2 mission, which is said to have cost $4.1 billion.
Will Wang’s plan for a Mars flyby go further than Maezawa’s plan for a moon trip? Or will NASA have to be calling the shots (and paying most of the bills) for any mission that goes out that far? Maybe Wang should compare notes with Tito and Maezawa.
This report was published on Universe Today with the headline “Crypto Investor Works on a Plan to Ride SpaceX’s Starship Around Mars.” Licensed for republication under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
