Elon Musk just revealed who will fly to the moon on SpaceX's new rocket ship

Elon Musk/SpaceX via Twitter

A Sept. 2018 rendering of SpaceX's Big Falcon Rocket launching through the cloud tops and toward space.

• Elon Musk and his rocket company, SpaceX, plan to launch a private passenger named Yusaku Maezawa around the moon.

• Yusaku Maezawa is a Japanese entrepreneur and art collector. If all goes according to plan, Maezawa will take a lunar voyage on the Big Falcon Rocket, or BFR: a launch system that SpaceX is developing to colonize Mars.

• Maezawa purchased all seats on the spaceship, and plans to select six to eight artists from a variety of disciplines to take the lunar journey with him in 2023.

• The mission won't land on the surface of the moon but will ferry Maezawa and his artist crewmates around Earth's natural satellite.

HAWTHORNE, California - Elon Musk and his rocket company, SpaceX, have revealed who will fly their spaceship around the moon for the first time: a Japanese entrepreneur and billionaire named Yusaku Maezawa.

Maezawa announced on Monday that he plans to select six to eight artists to accompany him on his journey around the moon. The artists have not yet been chosen, but part of the project will involve them creating work inspired by their lunar journey after they return to Earth.

SpaceX did not reveal how much Maezawa paid for the moon flight, but said he already made a down payment.

"He's paying a lot of money that would help with the ship and its booster," Musk said on Monday. "He's ultimately paying for the average citizen to travel to other planets."

Maezawa was a skateboarder and drummer in his youth, and founded the fashion label Zozo 20 years ago. The billionaire made news last year when he spent $110 million on a 1982 painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat. He said that he was inspired to bring a group of renowned artists with him around the moon after thinking of the masterpieces Basquiat would have created had he flown through space.

If all goes according to plan, Maezawa and his artist crew may become the first people to fly SpaceX's Big Falcon Rocket - a new launch system that's being designed to colonize Mars - and also the first-ever private lunar tourist in history.

The mission is slated to launch as soon as 2023. Musk described Maezawa as incredibly brave.

"This is going to be dangerous. This is no walk in the park," Musk said.

SpaceX/Twitter

SpaceX's rendering of a Big Falcon Rocket spaceship carrying a passenger around the moon.

On Monday, Musk also revealed some major design changes to the BFR. Instead of 347 feet tall, it will be 387 feet tall.

It's spaceship, which will ride atop a rocket booster, is expected to carry up to 100 people and 150 tons of supplies to the Martian surface.

SpaceX is currently prototyping the spaceship and other BFR hardware inside a 20,000-square-foot tent at the Port of Los Angeles - at least until a much bigger permanent facility is completed.

Prior to Monday's announcement, Musk last publicly described the BFR and showed renderings of the system at the 2017 International Aeronautical Congress.

The design has since changed, based on new renderings revealed Monday. Aerospace experts who follow Musk and SpaceX's activities suggest there could be more iterations before the company's first lunar voyage lifts off the launch pad.

"I think it is really healthy to see this iterative change happening, because I believe we can assume it is based on actual development and simulation going on," Greg Autry, the director of the Southern California Spaceflight Initiative, told Business Insider in an email before Musk's announcement.

But Musk said "this is the final iteration in terms of broad architectural design."

This story is developing. Please refresh this page for updates.

Dana Varinsky contributed reporting to this post.