First African to land in moon soonest is Lagosian

A Nigerian creative artist, Yemi Akinyemi-Dele, is going to the moon.

He made the cut on the first 20 shortlisted applicants for a trip around the moon.

Japanese billionaire, Yusaku Maezawa, announced on March 2 that he would choose eight members of the public to join him on the trip.

Maezawa’s mission, tagged “Dear Moon,” is scheduled to fly on SpaceX’s Starship rocket in 2023.

The project is a mission organised by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and funded by the billionaire and founder of E-Shop in Zozo town with a passionate love for creative artists.

The space mission project, which was open for creative art participants, attracted over one million applications across 249 countries around the world out of which only 20 were shortlisted and Yemi made the list to the final.

The 20 shortlisted names would further be scrutinised with only eight selected for the mission to the moon.

With this development, Akinyemi-Dele, whose father hails from Lagos State and his mother from the Czech Republic hopes to be selected for the Starship rocket mission with Maezawa in 2023.

The SpaceX Moon Project is the first in the series and it is expected that if Akinyemi-Dele is selected, he will create history by representing Nigeria and Czech Republic at the mission project.