'Baalveer' actor Dev Joshi selected for a week-long trip around Moon in SpaceX's Starship

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has announced the members of his crew he will be taking for a trip around the Moon in a SpaceX rocket. With nine core members and two backups, the team is part of the dearMoon mission which was announced in 2017 as the world’s first all-private lunar endeavour. Interestingly, there is an Indian on this list who is set to become the first private space traveller from India.

Dev Joshi, the star kid featured in the TV serial 'Baalveer', is one of the team members going on a week-long trip around the Moon in 2023. The crew was made public by Maezawa, on Friday, who bought all the seats of Starship in 2018 to take a team of artists to the Moon. 

The mission dearMoon was initially planned on a Falcon Heavy rocket but was upgraded to the mega-rocket Starship in 2018. Starship is the fully-reusable launch vehicle SpaceX is developing for transporting heavy cargo to the Moon and eventually to Mars. Since the Starship is yet to fly on its first orbital test flight, the dearMoon launch might get delayed by a few months.

'A lot will change for me': Dev Joshi 

Dev Joshi, who will soon join artists from around the world for his lunar trip, said, "After this experience, a lot will change for me." Taking to his Instagram, the actor shared his excitement about working with an international team. "Life has always surprised me with new opportunities and this is the biggest one I can ever think of," the 22-year-old wrote on Instagram. Notably, over one million people from 249 countries applied to be a part of the mission which would take the selected crew to as close as 200 km from the lunar surface. 

Accompanying him are eight others, including Maezawa-- DJ and music producer Steve Aoki, 'Everday Astronaut' Youtuber Tim Dodd, Artist Yemi A.D., Photographers Karim Iliya and Rhiannon Adam, filmmaker Brendan Hall, and musician T.O.P. Besides, dancer Miyu and snowboarder Kaitlyn Farrington have been chosen as backup crew members. While all of the above are artists, the qualifications required to join the team were not clarified. 

However, Joshi has had an illustrated acting career which began at the age of three as he started landing roles in television series, regional cinema, music albums, stage shows and advertisements. Known for portraying a superhero in the TV show 'Baalveer', Joshi was awarded the "Bal Shakti Puraskar" (2019), the highest civilian honour in India under the age of 18, by the former President of India Ramnath Kovind.