Back from space, Japanese billionaire “appreciates Earth more”

It’s when you move away that you realize how much you care about it. The whimsical billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, who spent twelve days aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in December with his assistant, said on Friday (January 7th) “appreciate more” the Earth since his return to the cow’s land. “We appreciate more (…) the seasons, the wind, the smells, the perception of various things”, detailed the Japanese businessman, who made his fortune in online fashion. “The food” also, he added, confident that he has since brought a chef specializing in sushi to his home.

Still amazed by this stay about 400 kilometers away from Earth, the 46-year-old space adventurer described at length the spectacle seen from the ISS. “It’s very pretty in photo but 100 times more beautiful if you see it with your own eyes”, he said. Faced with this spectacle, he said he wondered “what the world’s rulers would think if they got together in space and talked about earth’s problems”. That “could make Earth a better place to live”, he estimated.

While on the ISS, Yusaku Maezawa posted videos about daily life in orbit on his YouTube channel. He also mentioned his feeling of weightlessness and the difficulty in sleeping without gravity, “because we are constantly floating”. This art lover, who notably acquired a painting by Basquiat for more than $ 110 million in 2017, said he took a painting by a young Japanese artist into space, which he donated to the occupants of the Station, “very happy”, according to him.

As soon as he got his feet back on the ground, the Japanese billionaire said he was already thinking about the next step. He explained his next missions: a trip around the Moon in 2023, with eight other people aboard a spacecraft from the SpaceX group, but also a dive in the Marianas, the deepest oceanic trench known.

“I would like to dive into the Mariana Trench” in the Pacific, said Yusaku Maezawa, revealing, about this exploration project, that the type of the submarine and the duration of the dive were already decided, but that they will be announced “later”.