In 2009 Kojima wrote that if he could have only one wish it would be to go into space before he dies. He said a brief orbit just beyond Earth’s atmosphere would be enough, and that to make it happen he would give up even his position as a game designer, his family, or his own life.
“I could probably make games in space. I want to be the first.”
“I want to die making something.”
Kojima held that the deeper reason for going to space was not weightlessness, extraterrestrials, danger, or a special experience, but to find out who we are and what our place is. He described the journey to space as a journey to know oneself and the return to Earth as the passage from the past self to the future self; he concluded by asking where he himself would return as a game designer.
“I would like to go. Not to Mars, but to the surface of the moon. Just getting out of Earth's orbit, and seeing our Earth from up there… I could die happy. Seriously, I wouldn't care if I couldn't come back.”
“Personally, though, I would like to do smaller projects, but when I think of the time I have left living on this earth, I would rather spend that on bigger things!”