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1st private moon flight passenger to invite creative guests

LOS ANGELES — After announcing that he’ll take the first-ever commercial rocket trip around the moon, Yusaku Maezawa said he wants company for the weeklong journey. The Japanese billionaire said he plans to invite six to eight artists, architects, designers and other creative people to join him on board the SpaceX rocket “to inspire the dreamer in all of us.”
The Big Falcon Rocket is scheduled to make the trip in 2023, SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced at an event Monday at its headquarters near Los Angeles.
Maezawa, 42, said he wants his guests for the lunar orbit “to see the moon up close, and the Earth in full view, and create work to reflect their experience.”
Musk said the entrepreneur, founder of Japan’s largest retail
“I did not want to have such a fantastic experience by myself,” said Maezawa, wearing a blue sports jacket over a white T-shirt printed with a work by the late painter Jean-Michel Basquiat. He said he often mused about what artists like Basquiat or Andy Warhol might have come up with if they’d
“I wish to create amazing works of art for humankind,” Maezawa said.
Maezawa didn’t immediately say who will be on his guest list for the spaceflight, but in response to a question from a reporter he said he’d consider inviting Musk.
“Maybe we’ll both be on it,” Musk said with a smile.
Musk said the BFR is still in development and will make several unmanned test launches before it takes on passengers. The reusable 118-meter (387-foot) rocket will have its own dedicated passenger ship, and its development is expected to cost about $5 billion, Musk said.
The mission will not involve a lunar landing.
The average distance from Earth to the moon is about 237,685 miles (382,500
NASA is planning its own lunar flyby with a crew around 2023. The space agency also aims to build a staffed gateway near the moon during the 2020s. The outpost would serve as a stepping-off point for the lunar surface, Mars and points beyond.
Maezawa, a former musician, founded the retail firm Start Today in 1998 and built it into one of Japan’s most successful companies. In 2012, he started the Tokyo-based Contemporary Art Foundation to support young artists. He made headlines in 2016 when he paid more than $57 million at auction for an untitled work by Basquiat. A year later, he paid more than $110 million auction for another piece by the same artist.
Musk outlined a somewhat different SpaceX lunar mission last year. He said then that two people who know each other approached the company about a weeklong flight to the moon and back. Musk did not name the clients last year or say how much they would pay.
That original mission would have used a Falcon Heavy rocket — the most powerful rocket flying today — and a Dragon crew capsule similar to the one NASA astronauts will use to fly to the International Space Station as early as next year.
The era of space tourism began in 2001, when California businessman Dennis Tito paid for a journey on a Russian rocket to the International Space Station. The trip was organized by the Virginia-based company Space Adventures, which has since sent several more paying customers on spaceflights.
SpaceX already has a long list of firsts, with its sights ultimately set on Mars. It became the first private company to launch a spacecraft into orbit and safely return it to Earth in 2010, and the first commercial enterprise to fly to the space station in 2012 on a supply mission.
Musk’s successes have recently been overshadowed by his
He recently criticized analysts during a Tesla earnings conference call, labeled a British diver in the recent Thai cave rescue drama as a pedophile, took a hit off an apparent marijuana-tobacco joint during a podcast interview, and tweeted that he had funding to take Tesla private but then announced the deal was off.
Two high-level executives announced departures from Tesla, and the diver sued Musk on Monday. Last month he told the New York Times he was overwhelmed by job stress.
The British diver, Vernon Unsworth, sued Musk for defamation on Monday and is seeking more than $75,000.
Musk and SpaceX engineers built a small submarine and shipped it to Thailand to help with the rescue. The device wasn’t used and in the interview, Unsworth called it a “PR stunt” and said it wouldn’t have worked to free the boys who were trapped in the flooded cave.
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Follow Weber at https://twitter.com/WeberCM . Associated Press writers John Antczak in Los Angeles, Alicia Chang in New York and Marcia Dunn in Cape Canaveral, Florida, contributed to this report.
Christopher Weber, The Associated Press
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Poilievre on 2025 Election Interference – Carney sill hasn’t fired Liberal MP in Chinese election interference scandal

From Conservative Party Communications
“Yes. He must be disqualified. I find it incredible that Mark Carney would allow someone to run for his party that called for a Canadian citizen to be handed over to a foreign government on a bounty, a foreign government that would almost certainly execute that Canadian citizen.
“Think about that for a second. We have a Liberal MP saying that a Canadian citizen should be handed over to a foreign dictatorship to get a bounty so that that citizen could be murdered. And Mark Carney says he should stay on as a candidate. What does that say about whether Mark Carney would protect Canadians?
“Mark Carney is deeply conflicted. Just in November, he went to Beijing and secured a quarter-billion-dollar loan for his company from a state-owned Chinese bank. He’s deeply compromised, and he will never stand up for Canada against any foreign regime. It is another reason why Mr. Carney must show us all his assets, all the money he owes, all the money that his companies owe to foreign hostile regimes. And this story might not be entirely the story of the bounty, and a Liberal MP calling for a Canadian to be handed over for execution to a foreign government might not be something that the everyday Canadian can relate to because it’s so outrageous. But I ask you this, if Mark Carney would allow his Liberal MP to make a comment like this, when would he ever protect Canada or Canadians against foreign hostility?
“He has never put Canada first, and that’s why we cannot have a fourth Liberal term. After the Lost Liberal Decade, our country is a playground for foreign interference. Our economy is weaker than ever before. Our people more divided. We need a change to put Canada first with a new government that will stand up for the security and economy of our citizens and take back control of our destiny. Let’s bring it home.”
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Canada Needs A Real Plan To Compete Globally

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
Ottawa’s ideological policies have left Canada vulnerable. Strategic action is needed now
As Canada navigates an increasingly complex geopolitical landscape, the next federal government must move beyond reflexive anti—Americanism regardless of its political leanings. Instead, Canada should prioritize national interests while avoiding unnecessary conflict and subservience.
The notion that Canada can stand alone is as misguided as the idea that it is only an economic appendage of the United States. Both perspectives have influenced policy in Ottawa at different times, leading to mistakes.
Rather than engaging in futile name-calling or trade disputes, Canada must take strategic steps to reinforce its autonomy. This approach requires a pragmatic view rooted in Realpolitik—recognizing global realities, mitigating risks, governing for the whole country, and seizing opportunities while abandoning failed ideologies.
However, if Washington continues to pursue protectionist measures, Canada must find effective ways to counteract the weakened position Ottawa has placed the country in over the past decade.
One key strategy is diversifying trade relationships, notably by expanding economic ties with emerging markets such as India and Southeast Asia. This will require repairing Canada’s strained relationship with India and regaining political respect in China.
Unlike past Liberal trade missions, which often prioritized ideological talking points over substance, Canada must negotiate deals that protect domestic industries rather than turning summits into platforms for moral posturing.
A more effective approach would be strengthening partnerships with countries that value Canadian resources instead of vilifying them under misguided environmental policies. Expand LNG exports to Europe and Asia and leverage Canada’s critical minerals sector to establish reciprocal supply chains with non-Western economies, reducing economic reliance on the U.S.
Decades of complacency have left Canada vulnerable to American influence over its resource sector. Foreign-funded environmental groups have weakened domestic energy production, handing U.S. industries a strategic advantage. Ottawa must counter this by ensuring Canadian energy is developed at home rather than allowing suppressed domestic production to benefit foreign competitors.
Likewise, a robust industrial policy—prioritizing mining, manufacturing, and agricultural resilience—could reduce dependence on U.S. and Chinese imports. This does not mean adopting European-style subsidies but rather eliminating excessive regulations that make Canadian businesses uncompetitive, including costly domestic carbon tariffs.
Another key vulnerability is Canada’s growing military dependence on the U.S. through NORAD and NATO. While alliances are essential, decades of underfunding and neglect have turned the Canadian Armed Forces into little more than a symbolic force. Canada must learn self-reliance and commit to serious investment in defence.
Increasing defence spending—not to meet NATO targets but to build deterrence—is essential. Ottawa must reform its outdated procurement processes and develop a domestic defence manufacturing base, reducing reliance on foreign arms deals.
Canada’s vast Arctic is also at risk. Without continued investment in northern sovereignty, Ottawa may find itself locked out of its own backyard by more assertive global powers.
For too long, Canada has relied on an economic model that prioritizes federal redistribution over wealth creation and productivity. A competitive tax regime—one that attracts investment instead of punishing success—is essential.
A capital gains tax hike might satisfy activists in Toronto, but it does little to attract investments and encourage economic growth. Likewise, Ottawa must abandon ideological green policies that threaten agri-food production, whether by overregulating farmers or ranchers. At the same time, it must address inefficiencies in supply management once and for all. Canada must be able to feed a growing world without unnecessary bureaucratic obstacles.
Ottawa must also create an environment where businesses can innovate and grow without excessive regulatory burdens. This includes eliminating interprovincial trade barriers that stifle commerce.
Similarly, Canada’s tech sector, long hindered by predatory regulations, should be freed from excessive government interference. Instead of suffocating innovation with compliance mandates, Ottawa should focus on deregulation while implementing stronger security measures for foreign tech firms operating in Canada.
Perhaps Ottawa’s greatest mistake is its knee-jerk reactions to American policies, made without a coherent long-term strategy. Performative trade disputes with Washington and symbolic grandstanding in multilateral organizations do little to advance Canada’s interests.
Instead of reacting emotionally, Canada must take proactive steps to secure its economic, resource, and defence future. That is the role of a responsible government.
History’s best strategists understood that one should never fight an opponent’s war but instead dictate the terms of engagement. Canada’s future does not depend on reacting to Washington’s policies—these are calculated strategies, not whims. Instead, Canada’s success will be determined by its ability to act in the interests of citizens in all regions of the country, and seeing the world as it is rather than how ideological narratives wish it to be.
Marco Navarro-Génie is the vice president of research at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. With Barry Cooper, he is co-author of Canada’s COVID: The Story of a Pandemic Moral Panic (2023).
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