In March 2021, Yusaku Maezawa, the space-obsessed Japanese billionaire behind the e-commerce site Zozotown, announced a contest to select eight civilian crew members to join him on a private space flight. The week-long mission, called dear moonit will fly around the moon and return on a SpaceX spacecraft sometime in 2023.
One person who paid particular attention to Maezawa’s mission was Tim Dodd, a professional photographer turned space YouTuber from Iowa. Also known as Everyday Astronaut, Dodd has a YouTube channel with 1.37 million subscribers where he covers rocket launches. public and private events that take place around the world.
“I decided, Yes, why not? i will applyDodd said. She made a video explaining why she wanted to participate in dearMoon, but she never thought she would make it to the final eight. “I hadn’t remotely considered going,” she said. “I really felt like it was too good an opportunity to pass up.”
Despite the odds, Maezawa said more than 1 million people applied for the moon mission, Dodd was announced as one of the crew members earlier this month, along with musician Steve Aoki, the K-pop artist TOP, Indian actor Dev Joshi and four others. They will accompany Maezawa, who last year flew to the International Space Station aboard a Soyuz spacecraft. Crew members have passed full health checks and a litany of tests, but still have to undergo months of rigorous training.
Earlier this year, Coby Cotton of the Dude Perfect YouTube channel entered suborbital space on a Blue Origin mission, but Dodd will be the first full-time YouTuber to travel to outer space. “I have an opportunity to push those boundaries a little further if I go to the moon,” Dodd said. (The mission will not actually land on the lunar surface.)
“It’s crazy to think about traveling 240,000 miles away from home,” he said. “How do you physically and mentally prepare for that? It’s so absurd. Going through all of that and having that experience, seeing it and feeling it and then going through the re-entry and landing phase and knowing that you are safe on Earth and back home, I think the emotions will be so intense that I don’t think you can function.
To reach the final eight, Dodd underwent multiple Zoom interviews with the dearMoon project. Among the questions Dodd and others were asked was what they could bring to the mission. “I’m like, ‘Honestly, I have no idea,’” she recalled. “’I could sit there and cry for two days.’” Joking aside, Dodd touted his photography and videography skills, as well as his space expertise. “I can communicate,” she said. “I can help explain to the crew what’s going on.”
