Indian TV Actor Dev Joshi Joins Japanese Billionaire's Crew For SpaceX Moon Trip

Television actor Dev Joshi on Friday announced that he will be joining the "dearMoon CREW" and taking a week-long trip around the moon in a SpaceX rocket in 2023. The 'dearMoon' project was first announced in 2017 and is the first civilian mission to the Moon. As per the project website, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, who purchased all the seats aboard the rocket in 2018, on Friday revealed the name of the eight people who will be joining him for the all-private lunar endeavour. 

Taking to Instagram, Mr Joshi, the star kid who featured in the TV serial 'Baal Veer', said he is "proud to be part of such an extraordinary, unbelievable, once-in-a-lifetime project". "Life has always surprised me with new opportunities & this is the biggest one I can ever think of!" he wrote. "I am proud to represent my Beautiful country India at global scale in this Universal project," Mr Joshi added. 

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Dev Joshi is best known for his role in the superhero TV show 'Baal Veer'. According to his official website, 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. In 2019, Mr Joshi was even awarded the "Bal Shakti Puraskar", which is the highest civilian honour in India under the age of 18, by the former President of India Ramnath Kovind. 

On being picked to be part of the dearMoon mission, Mr 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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Meanwhile, apart from Mr Joshi, the eight others accompanying him are Mr Maezawa, DJ and music producer Steve Aoki, 'Everday Astronaut' Youtuber Tim Dodd, Artist Yemi A.D., Photographers Karim Iliya and Rhiannon Adam, filmmaker Brendan Hall and Korean rapper TOP. There are also two backup crew members: snowboarder Kaitlyn Farrington of the United States and dancer Miyu of Japan. 

As per the mission profile 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.