Chun Wang – A cryptocurrency billionaire with roots in Bitcoin mining is expected to lead a future SpaceX Starship mission designed to fly past Mars and return to Earth. SpaceX hasn’t announced a launch date, and Starship still has to prove it can carry humans far beyond
The Moon had Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Mars, Elon Musk has long argued, could have a new kind of lead—one who doesn’t come from the space program at all.
Chun Wang. a cryptocurrency billionaire whose fortune traces back to Bitcoin mining. is expected to lead a future SpaceX Starship mission that would fly past Mars and return to Earth. SpaceX has not announced a launch date. and the plan still depends on Starship proving it can safely carry humans far beyond Earth’s orbit.
The timeline matters because this isn’t being sold as a quick photo-op. A reported Mars flyby lasting around two years would be a very different test—for the passenger as much as the spacecraft. If SpaceX pulls it off. Wang could become one of the first humans to travel toward Mars. even without landing there.
This kind of ambition is exactly where private spaceflight has been changing. Celebrity-shaped missions are already part of the story: in April 2025. Blue Origin flew Katy Perry. Gayle King. Lauren Sánchez. Aisha Bowe. Amanda Nguyễn. and Kerianne Flynn on its NS-31 New Shepard mission. The all-female suborbital flight lasted minutes, but it drew heavy attention worldwide.
Wang, though, isn’t new to riding a rocket that’s actually going somewhere. He previously commanded SpaceX’s Fram2 mission. a Crew Dragon flight that carried four civilian astronauts over Earth’s polar regions in 2025. That mission lasted several days and gave Wang actual orbital flight experience before his planned jump to Starship—an important detail. since it means SpaceX is not choosing someone with no time in space.
Still, Wang’s Mars flyby would demand far more than a taste of orbit. Musk’s Mars dream has always been anchored to Starship, but Starship is still being tested. SpaceX’s upgraded Starship V3 launched on May 22, 2026, after an earlier scrub due to a launch tower issue. The uncrewed test reportedly achieved most of its goals, including stage separation and mock Starlink satellite deployment.
Then the mission ended the way some experimental flights do: with a splashdown in the Indian Ocean and erupting into a massive fireball. SpaceX said the fiery end was intentional, as the company did not plan to recover or reuse the experimental spacecraft.
Starship has not carried humans yet, which means the mission Wang would lead is still a long way from happening. For now, the plan boils down to one requirement: SpaceX must prove the rocket can safely take people far beyond Earth’s orbit.
Chun Wang cryptocurrency billionaire Bitcoin mining SpaceX Starship V3 Mars flyby Fram2 mission Crew Dragon Blue Origin NS-31 Katy Perry Mars mission timeline
Mars flyby for a crypto guy? Sounds like a vacation ad with rockets.
I don’t get why they need some Bitcoin billionaire leading it. Like shouldn’t astronauts be, I dunno, astronauts? Also “fly past Mars” for TWO YEARS is kinda wild, are they even coming back or what.
Wait so this Chun Wang dude already did “Fram2” and now it’s Mars? So basically crypto people just buy a seat and get promoted. If Starship is exploding on splashdowns already, how is that safe for humans??
Two years around Mars sounds fake to me, like they’ll cancel it right when it’s time. And I saw something else that said Starship could land back on the launch site? But this article talks about the fireball in the ocean on purpose so… are they practicing disaster or what. Also Katy Perry was on Blue Origin so it’s basically celebrity space now, not science.