sounded like an April Fools Joke,
especially as the rocket launch was to take place in Wuhan, China’s Hubei province, and the
epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic, members of the media were quick to note
that the advertised event and the accompanying livestream were opportunities to
re-promote Wuhan and all it has to offer, photograph Pixabay,
but Chinese
media recently reported that an anonymous online shopper paid 40 million yuan
($5.6 million) for his very own rocket launch. The unique online auction was
hosted by Chinese celebrity sales anchor Wei Ya and over two million people
tuned in to watch the sale live on Taobao, bidders were told that winning the
auction would allow them to paint the body of the commercial rocket and the
launch platform, as well as the chance to visit the launch site and control the
launch,
posters advertising the launch of a rocket went viral on Chinese social media on April 1, and the hashtag #WeiYaSellsARocket was used over 620,000 times on Weibo alone. Many speculated that this was just an ingenious April Fools’ Day stunt, but national newspaper Global Times claims that Taobao confirmed that the rocket sale “was for real” in a public post, the Global Times suggested that the launch sale, headed by Chinese entrepreneur Luo Yonghao, was inspired by an earlier Taobao online poll, where people were asked what they would rather win, “a rocket, a satellite, a partner or a cleaning lady”, the name of the person who paid a reported 40 million yuan ($5.6 million) for the chance to personalize and control the rocket launch has not yet been revealed, it might be far fetched but remember the BBC reported that in 2017 the Chinese online platform hosted an auction for two Boeing 747 jets, so may be you really can buy your own supersonic rocket!
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