• After announcing that he'll take the first commercial rocket trip around the moon, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa said he wants company for the weeklong journey. Maezawa 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 carrying Maezawa is scheduled to make the trip in 2023, SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced Monday. 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 website and one of the country's richest people, will pay "a lot of money" for the trip but declined to disclose the exact amount. Maezawa went to SpaceX with the idea for the group flight, Musk said. The Big Falcon Rocket is still in development and will make several unmanned test launches before it takes on passengers. The reusable 387-foot rocket will have its own dedicated passenger ship, and its development is expected to cost about $5 billion, Musk said. During Monday's announcement, Maezawa said he didn't want "to have such a fantastic experience by myself," adding that he often mused about what artists such as the late painters Jean-Michel Basquiat or Andy Warhol might have come up with if they'd traveled into space. "I wish to create amazing works of art for humankind," Maezawa said.
• The 1970 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow convertible that once belonged to boxing legend Muhammad Ali is being auctioned by Bonhams. The vintage car is estimated to fetch $47,000 to $70,000 (plus the buyer's premium) when it goes under the hammer without reserve on Oct. 5 in Belgium. The car is one of only 272 Silver Shadow left-hand drive convertibles created by H.J. Mulliner Park Ward in Willesden, London. Ali bought the Rolls-Royce new in New Jersey in December 1970 for about $16,000 (about $105,000 in today's dollars), according to the auction house, the same year his boxing license was reinstated after his three-year suspension because of his draft refusal during the Vietnam War. The convertible was hand-built and features luxury appointments including walnut veneers, Connelly leather, and Wilton carpeting. Ali died in 2016 at age 74. He drove the convertible, which has an odometer reading of 4,475 miles, for six years. The new owner also will receive a copy of Ali's temporary driver's license under his birth name of Cassius Clay, and a photograph of the boxer with his friend Diana Ross and the car outside Caesars Palace in Las Vegas before Ali's 1973 fight with Joe Bugner.
A Section on 09/19/2018