Crypto Investor Chun Wang Eyes SpaceX’s First Private Starship Flyby to Mars, With Moon Trip First
SpaceX’s Mars ambitions have taken on a new private passenger: Chinese-born cryptocurrency investor Chun Wang, who says he wants to one day ride Starship on a flyby of Mars — but only after first taking part in a lunar mission.
Wang, a deep-pocketed spaceflight enthusiast known for financing high-profile civilian space ventures, revealed his latest ambition during a SpaceX webcast tied to the company’s latest Starship test campaign. While SpaceX’s next-generation rocket remains in development and has yet to complete an orbital flight, the company said Wang is already in line for what it described as “the first interplanetary mission on a Starship.”
The plan is still aspirational and no launch date has been announced. But the announcement underscores a growing reality in the commercial space sector: private individuals are increasingly seeking seats on missions that once existed only as government-led science fiction. For SpaceX, which has spent years positioning Starship as the vehicle that could eventually carry humans to the Moon and Mars, Wang’s interest is another sign of confidence from a customer willing to bankroll some of the company’s most ambitious goals.
A billionaire passenger with interplanetary ambitions
Wang, who made his fortune in cryptocurrency and has become a familiar name in the emerging private spaceflight scene, said he wants to ride a Starship around Mars in what would amount to a flyby mission rather than a landing attempt. He emphasized that he is not fixated on building a Martian city or being part of a colonization project right away, but instead wants to take part in the early steps of deep-space human travel.
“It’s going to be a flyby mission of Mars,” Wang said during the webcast, according to SpaceX’s public remarks. His comment reflects a more measured approach than some of the more expansive rhetoric surrounding Mars colonization. While many space enthusiasts talk about permanent settlements and self-sustaining colonies, Wang’s stated goal is more modest: to be among the first private travelers to see Mars up close aboard the world’s most powerful rocket system.
Still, the timing remains uncertain. SpaceX has not provided a timetable for the mission, and the spacecraft itself is still working through a lengthy development and testing process. The Mars trip, if it ever happens, would be a major demonstration of Starship’s ability to carry humans far beyond Earth orbit and sustain life-support, navigation, communication and re-entry systems over long durations.
SpaceX says the round trip would take two years
SpaceX has said the proposed Mars flyby mission would be a round trip lasting roughly two years. That timeline highlights the enormous challenge of deep-space travel and the narrow launch windows dictated by the positions of Earth and Mars. Such missions are typically planned around the planets’ orbital alignment, which opens favorable windows approximately every 26 months.
For now, the company’s public Mars roadmap remains broader than any one private mission. SpaceX has long said Starship is intended to carry both cargo and crew to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond. In its Mars concept, the vehicle would use orbital refueling and, eventually, local resources on Mars to refuel for return missions and future operations. The architecture is designed to be fully reusable, a key factor in lowering the cost of deep-space travel.
But before any civilian ride to Mars becomes realistic, Starship must prove itself reliable in Earth orbit and beyond. The rocket is still in the testing phase, and even routine development flights have posed technical challenges. SpaceX’s latest launch attempt was postponed because of ground equipment issues, though the company said it could try again soon.
The Moon first: a warmup mission for deep space
Wang’s immediate target is not Mars but the Moon. He said he intends to join California engineer and investor Dennis Tito and Tito’s wife, Akiko Tito, on a Starship trip around the Moon. SpaceX says that mission would last about a week and bring the spacecraft within roughly 200 kilometers, or 120 miles, of the lunar surface.
That flight is expected to serve as a proving ground for Starship’s deep-space systems. A lunar circumlunar mission would help test life support, crew operations, communications and navigation during a long-duration journey beyond low Earth orbit. If successful, it would represent a major milestone for SpaceX and for commercial human spaceflight more broadly.
For private passengers like Wang, the Moon mission is a logical stepping stone. A trip around the Moon would offer a direct experience of deep-space travel without requiring the same duration, radiation exposure and mission complexity as a Mars flyby. It would also allow SpaceX to gather valuable operational data before attempting even more ambitious trajectories.
Starship still needs to prove itself
Despite the excitement surrounding Mars, Starship remains a work in progress. The vehicle is central to Elon Musk’s broader vision of making humanity multi-planetary, but it must clear a long list of engineering hurdles before it can carry people on such missions. These include successful launch and landing performance, in-orbit refueling, heat shield durability, long-duration life support and reliable re-entry to Earth.
SpaceX has already demonstrated a willingness to move quickly through test iterations, even after explosions and failed flight attempts. That rapid development style has helped the company advance the program far faster than traditional aerospace schedules, but it also means the rocket is still far from operational maturity.
On the company’s Mars page, SpaceX says its Starship system is intended to enable cargo flights to Mars for research and exploratory missions before crewed operations begin. The company has also said that eventual Mars missions will rely on tanker flights to refuel Starship in low-Earth orbit before departure. In the longer term, SpaceX says it hopes to use Martian water and carbon dioxide resources to support surface operations and fuel production.
Private spaceflight enters a new era
Wang’s ambitions reflect a broader trend in private spaceflight: wealthy civilians are no longer content with short suborbital hops or simple orbital tourism. Increasingly, they are eyeing missions that once belonged only to astronauts, planetary scientists and national space agencies.
That shift has already produced record-breaking private missions, from multi-day orbital trips to fully civilian flights. SpaceX itself has become the dominant commercial player in the field, ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA, launching private crews, and building the hardware for the next phase of exploration.
Still, a private Mars flyby would be on another scale entirely. It would not merely be a tourism milestone, but a test of whether commercial spaceflight can extend beyond Earth’s neighborhood and into true interplanetary operations. If realized, it would be a historic first for a private citizen and a defining moment for SpaceX.
When could it happen?
That remains the biggest question. No timetable was given for Wang’s Mars mission, and SpaceX has not publicly committed to a specific launch year for the private flyby. The company’s broader Mars program has seen shifting dates over the years as engineering goals and launch windows change. Even optimistic internal targets depend on the successful demonstration of orbital refueling, a capability that is still being developed.
For now, the likely sequence is clear: the Moon mission comes first, then further Starship testing, then — if the technology matures quickly enough — a Mars flyby. Whether Wang ultimately becomes the first private passenger to circle the Red Planet will depend not just on his willingness to buy a ticket, but on SpaceX’s ability to turn Starship from a test vehicle into a reliable interplanetary spacecraft.
Until then, the idea remains a striking symbol of how quickly space travel is changing. What was once the realm of national superpowers is now being shaped by private fortunes, private missions and private dreams of reaching another planet.