The Indian actor who will go on a trip around the moon on SpaceX Starship

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has picked eight people who will join him for a trip around the moon on a private SpaceX flight as early as next year. The crew includes artists, entertainers, athletes and musicians, with American DJ Steve Aoki and Korean rapper TOP being among the most high-profile picks. Maezawa had announced the mission, dubbed “dearMoon” in 2018. He initially wanted to take a group of artists with him on a fly-by around the moon, but last year, he announced that people from all walks of life would be welcome to apply.

The fashion mogul said he wanted to include “people from all kinds of backgrounds.” The crew for the SpaceX moon trip, announced Thursday, includes space YouTuber Tim Dodd, Irish photographer Rhiannon Adam, American documentary filmmaker Brendan Hall, UK photographer Karim Iliya, Czech dancer Yemi AD.

India will be represented on the SpaceX moon trip by television actor Dev Joshi

Crew for Moon Trip Selected!!#dearMoonCrew @dearmoonprojecthttps://t.co/P0vEZ6Cibo

— Yusaku Maezawa (MZ) (@yousuckMZ) December 8, 2022

The 22-year-old actor belongs to Gujarat. He started acting at the age of 3 and has appeared in several ad films and television shows, along with a couple of feature films and music videos as well.

On being picked to be part of the dearMoon mission, Joshi said: “Always be positive and be passionate, because miracles happen, and they happen anytime, which came in the form of dearMoon for me!”

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A post shared by Dev Joshi (@devjoshi28)

“Really proud to be part of this landmark project and to represent India at a global scale!” he added in an Instagram post. “I am proud to be part of such an extraordinary, unbelievable, once-in-a-lifetime project.”

According to a mission profile graphic on the dearMoon website, the round trip would last almost six days and circumnavigate the Moon without landing.

When completed, SpaceX's Starship will be the most powerful rocket ever built.

Although its upper stage has succeeded in test flights within the atmosphere and successfully landed, SpaceX has yet to carry out an orbital test flight -- something founder Elon Musk has repeatedly promised will happen by the end of 2022.