Artists we want SpaceX to take on its first private moon mission

SpaceX has chosen its first lunar tourist to journey past the moon on its BFR. Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has been chosen for the task, but he won't go alone -- he plans on taking an entourage of artists with him as part of a project called #dearMoon. But while some of history's greatest artists won't be able to take the trip, we wonder what they'd do if they had the opportunity to fly into space. 

Even on a rocket full of artists bound for the moon, you can guarantee Salvador Dali would be the strange one. But when your moustache defies gravity, travelling to space is the next logical step, right? We'd love to hear Dali's thoughts on how space travel affects your perception of time (and the persistence of memory). 

Roy Lichtenstein cut his teeth just as the original space race was kicking off, and the man clearly knew his way around rockets. We vote for Lichtenstein as the best candidate to paint the retro-futuristic posters advertising the next space race (those moon craters would look pretty good painted with Ben-Day dots).

There's possibly no painting of the night sky more famous than "The Starry Night" by Vincent van Gogh, imagine what might have been if Vincent had a view from the stars. 

Maezawa doesn't just want traditional artist-painters, he's planning on taking photographers, sculptors, film directors, dancers and fashion designers. For the latter, we vote for Karl Lagerfeld -- who else can create a stylish look that takes you from cocktails to zero oxygen in seconds flat? 

When it comes to musicians, Grimes is so ready for space. Her witch-house synth-pop electronica music and creative collabs with Saint Laurent are already so off the planet (in a strangely cool kind of way), we're not entirely convinced she hasn't already been to the moon. Plus, she's already in with Elon Musk, so you know she's ready for a ride on the BFR. 

But the most obvious recording artist to send to space? The starman himself, David Bowie. Ziggy Stardust is already familiar with the spiders from Mars, and with an outfit like that he is the obvious choice to design SpaceX's space suits. If there's life on Mars, Bowie will find it. 

Speaking of life on Mars, we need to get ready to see some weird creatures as we start to explore deeper into space. And who better to capture them for us than Australian artist Patricia Piccinini -- her hyperreal work is part human, part alien and the kind of thing you could certainly imagine romping about on an distant planet.

On a rocket ship full of esoteric artists, you need a few more people who see the world like an engineer. Piet Mondrian's work is the kind of thing you could see adorning a control panel or a circuit board on a space ship, and we're getting some real Saturn I vibes with this colour scheme. 

If Maezawa wants to take a film director in his group of artists, then this could finally be our chance to get Christopher Nolan on a space ship to remake Interstellar (though chances are it would still push the three-hour mark). 

Everyone always wonders how you go to the toilet in space, but Marcel Duchamp would be ready to break through those awkward social barriers that come with living in close quarters with other astronauts/artists. We're just not sure how his "Fountain" would go in zero-G. 

Banksy probably wouldn't out himself so publicly by appearing on a SpaceX moon mission, but we'd love to see him deck out SpaceX's BFR with a sweet paint job. We're thinking anti-establishment stencils and a big picture of Elon Musk in Groucho Marx glasses.