F2Pool Founder Chun Wang Secures Spot on First SpaceX Crewed Mars Journey
Chun Wang, the entrepreneur who financed and commanded a SpaceX polar orbital mission, has announced his participation in SpaceX's inaugural crewed voyage to the red planet.
The Maltese entrepreneur of Chinese origin who established the cryptocurrency mining pool F2Pool, Chun Wang, has secured his place on SpaceX's inaugural planned mission to Mars after "purchasing" the historic journey.
In an announcement made Thursday, SpaceX revealed details of the two-year-duration mission that will venture beyond lunar orbit, conduct a Mars flyby, and complete an Earth return trajectory. In addition to the Mars journey, Wang has secured passage on a planned seven-day commercial lunar orbital flight scheduled to depart prior to the interplanetary expedition.
"I believe that even without private investment in lunar flights, we will still reach the Moon, and likely very soon. As competition between the United States and China intensifies, governments will turn lunar bases into reality," Wang said in a post on X on Friday.
"And I am happy to sit back and watch that happen. On the other hand, I have no confidence that Mars will still happen within our lifetime. And I think I should do something about that. I hope that by purchasing a flyby mission to Mars, SpaceX will have another reason not to forget about Mars. Because we seriously shouldn't defer Mars to our next generation," he added.
An increasing number of technology industry entrepreneurs have begun investing in and participating directly in extraterrestrial expeditions, among them Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, Richard Branson, co-founder of Virgin Group, and Jared Isaacman, who founded the American payment processing firm Shift4 Payments.
According to SpaceX, Starship cargo missions to Mars dedicated to research, development and exploration purposes are anticipated to commence no earlier than 2028.
The long-term objective is to create a self-sustaining Martian city, which according to SpaceX estimates will necessitate a population exceeding 1 million individuals and the transportation of millions of tons of supplies and equipment.
"I hope this mission can show the public that Mars is not just a point of light in a telescope. It is a real place, and humans can fly there and come back alive and come back healthy," Wang said.
A citizen of Malta born in China, Wang established F2Pool in 2013, making it among China's earliest Bitcoin mining pools. The pool currently ranks as the third largest globally, commanding a market share exceeding 11.85%, based on data from mempool.space.
In April of last year, Wang also financed and served as commander of the "Fram2" mission, another SpaceX expedition that completed a polar orbital flight over Earth's north and south poles while conducting various experiments including performing an X-ray procedure in the space environment and cultivating mushrooms.
The remaining three members of the four-person crew consisted of Rabea Rogge, a German scientist specializing in polar research, Jannicke Mikkelsen, a Norwegian cinematographer, and Eric Philips, an Australian adventurer with Arctic exploration experience.