“Sudden, short and unexpected”: dearMoon crew laments cancellation of private SpaceX Starship lunar mission

The dearMoon crew shared their disappointment on social media following the mission's sudden cancellation.

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa canceled his planned June 1 flight around the moon due to delays to SpaceX's giant rocket Starship, which has never made a manned test flight. Maezawa originally booked the private trip in 2018 and invited eight artists to join him, with the project, called dearMoon, set to launch by the end of 2023.

“Under these circumstances, we are unable to make any future plans and feel bad about making our staff wait any longer, so we have made the difficult decision to cancel at this time,” Maezawa said in a statement on X (formerly Twitter). “I apologize to everyone who was looking forward to this project.”

Related: Japanese billionaire cancels private lunar flight on SpaceX's massive Starship

The dearMoon crew was made up of eight creatives working in a variety of fields, from music to photography to film to YouTube. While the crew wasn't expected to conduct science experiments or have any other responsibilities (apart from basic mission safety duties), the hope was that the artists would create artwork inspired by the trip.

After Maezawa decided to abort the mission, some crew members expressed disappointment at losing the opportunity to fly in space.

“I am sad to share this unfortunate news,” Yemi AD, a member of the DearMoon crew and multifaceted creator, said in a statement from X. “Although the #dearMoon mission has come to an end, my commitment to space exploration projects and my determination to help underprivileged youth achieve their own moonshots remains unwavering.”

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I am sad to share this unfortunate news. Although the #dearMoon mission has come to an end, my commitment to space exploration projects and helping underprivileged young people achieve their own moonshots remains unwavering. In addition to my work with the Moonshot Platform… https://t.co/FCO6bvXsuT pic.twitter.com/NLfYa0kels June 4, 2024

Crew member and Everyday Astronaut founder Tim Dodd also expressed his disappointment in the mission's cancellation in a lengthy statement: “But the reality is, I need to mourn this loss because it was such a big part of my life, my dreams, my vision,” Dodd said in a post on X.

I am sad to share this unfortunate news. Although the #dearMoon mission has come to an end, my commitment to space exploration projects and helping underprivileged young people achieve their own moonshots remains unwavering. In addition to my work with the Moonshot Platform… https://t.co/FCO6bvXsuT pic.twitter.com/NLfYa0kels June 4, 2024

Meanwhile, other crew members have criticised Maezawa's decision as unilateral and hasty.

“They never asked us if we were willing to wait, offered us options or discussed the possibility of cancelling before making a decision,” Irish photographer Rhiannon Adam, part of the Dear Moon crew, said in a statement from X. “I can only speak for myself, but I would have waited until I was ready.”

I'm sorry, but as a member of the crew, this is not acceptable. You did not ask if we were willing to wait, did not offer us the option, or discuss with us that you were considering cancelling before making the decision. I can only speak for myself, but I would have waited until I was ready. June 1, 2024

Brendan Hall, the film's director and crew member, echoed similar sentiments in a statement posted online, saying the decision to cancel was made solely by Maezawa and suggesting the crew should have waited longer until the Starship was ready.

“Our crew, after many prior conversations, was prepared to wait however long it took to make this flight a reality,” Hall said in a statement. “As many of us know, timelines are the nature of spaceflight. Every day, the space industry achieves groundbreaking achievements that were once thought impossible. Over the past few years, our crew has been well-informed about Starship's development through public information and discussions, and we were fully aware that we could potentially invest years in this mission. The cancellation of this mission was sudden, short-lived, and unexpected.”

SpaceX's Starship and its Super Heavy booster are the world's tallest and most powerful rockets ever to fly. The first unmanned test flight was launched in April 2023 but failed to reach space. A second test flight in November 2023 flew even higher but also failed.

During its third test flight on March 14 of this year, Starship reached orbital velocity, but neither the spacecraft nor the booster survived re-entering Earth's atmosphere. Starship's fourth test flight began on June 6 and successfully completed a landing burn before splashing down in the Indian Ocean.

Despite the spacecraft's progress, Maezawa's decision to cancel the flight was ultimately driven by uncertainty about when Starship would be ready to fly the DiaMoon mission.

“I understand this will be costly and have financial impacts for MZ. It was a generous dream, but the reality was that,” Adam said in another post on X. “To have that taken away so unceremoniously and with so little consideration for us undermines the professed mission in which we trusted.”

Dodd also commented on the project's optimistic timeline and lack of transparency.

“What I'm not comfortable with is the timeline. If I'd known this could be wrapped up within a year and a half of being announced, I would never have agreed,” Dodd later said in an X post. “We had no prior knowledge of this possibility, and even before the announcement, I was of the opinion that dearMoon was unlikely to come to fruition within the next few years.”

Dodd said he was “very disappointed,” but added, “I made new friends, I had new adventures, [himself]Despite the mission being canceled, we sent a “” through dearMoon.

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