 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| . |  |
. |
 By Kyoko HASEGAWA Tokyo (AFP) May 13, 2021
Billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, who will travel to the International Space Station as a tourist in December aboard a Russian spacecraft, is a former wannabe rock star worth $1.9 billion with a penchant for pricey modern art as well as space travel. The 45-year-old tycoon, founder of Japan's largest online fashion mall, is the country's 30th richest person, according to business magazine Forbes. It will be the first time the Russian space agency Roscosmos has taken a tourist to the ISS since 2009. He is known for his luxury living -- including private jets, yachts and designer watches, but also his beloved art. He made his fortune as the founder of online fashion store Zozo, which he sold to Yahoo! Japan in 2019. Maezawa hit the headlines in 2018 when he was announced as the first man to book a spot aboard a lunar spaceship being developed by SpaceX, the Roscosmos rival of American billionaire Elon Musk. He placed an online ad calling for a girlfriend to join him on the 2023 flight -- only to abruptly cancel the hunt, despite attracting nearly 30,000 applicants. His love of art became a focus in 2017 when he bought a Jean-Michel Basquiat masterpiece worth $110.5 million. But he has also often featured in the tabloid glossies for his celebrity love life. He used to date the ex-wife of professional baseball player Yu Darvish as well as Japanese actress Ayame Goriki. - 'Ordinary collector' - The entrepreneur has a passion for modern art and splashed a record sum for Basquiat's 1982 "Untitled", a skull-like head in oil-stick, acrylic and spray paint on a giant canvas. Maezawa founded the Contemporary Art Foundation in Tokyo and was on the 2017 list of "Top 200 Collectors" of the ARTnews magazine based in New York. He has insisted he is just an "ordinary collector" despite his extraordinary bank balance. His purchases are born out of love and driven by gut instinct, he has said, rather than the instructions of any art adviser. "I buy simply because they are beautiful. That's all. I enjoy classics together with the history and stories behind them, but possessing classics is not the purpose of my purchase," he told AFP in an interview in 2017. And rather than squirrel the work away, he has loaned it out to museums including the Brooklyn Museum, in Basquiat's hometown. "I hope it brings as much joy to others as it does to me, and that this masterpiece by the 21-year-old Basquiat inspires our future generations," he said. - 'Routine work' - As a young man, Maezawa had aspirations in the music world and was a drummer with a band named Switch Style, which made its debut in 2000. In an interview with corporate affairs website Nippon Shacho, he said he eventually discovered that the business world was more creative than music. Writing songs, releasing albums and touring the country performing was "gradually becoming routine work", he told the website. "We were about to become salary worker-like musicians," he said, referring to the famous Japanese "salaryman" employees. Even before the band's debut, he was dabbling in business, founding Start Today, which operates online fashion shopping site Zozo, which he sold in 2019. He said the company grew because he and his staff were "doing what we enjoy". "We love clothes, and we love our colleagues who love clothes. We are doing business as an extension of our hobby."
Top Things to Know about Space Station Crew Handovers Kennedy Space Center FL (SPX) Apr 30, 2021 The International Space Station is our home in low-Earth orbit. Humans have been living and working continuously on the station for more than 20 years. Astronauts and cosmonauts visiting the space station have arrived on the space shuttle, the Russian Soyuz, and now, the SpaceX Crew Dragon, with Boeing's CST-100 Starliner to be added to the mix. With these new flights on U.S. commercial spacecraft, the station is transitioning from indirect to direct crew handovers. What does this mean? Read below ... read more
|
|||||||||||||
|
|
| The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us. |
del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Google
