Where you might just see gray rocks, soil and craters on the moon, entrepreneurs see profit. And whatever happens during Thursday’s landing attempt, expect more companies to race toward the moon in the years ahead.
NASA is looking to send astronauts to the moon in the coming years, and robotic spacecraft will go there first. The space agency is financing a number of commercial missions through its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS. The program is modeled on NASA’s successful effort to rely on private companies for trips to and from the International Space Station.
For NASA, buying rides on private spacecraft to take instruments and equipment to the moon is cheaper than building its own vehicles. NASA also hopes to spur a new commercial industry around the moon.
So far, however, NASA has little to show for its efforts. Some of the companies that NASA had selected to bid for CLPS missions have already gone out of business. And Astrobotic of Pittsburgh’s first CLPS flight failed on its way to the moon last month.
The dream of a delivery service to the moon is not a new one.
In 2007, the X Prize Foundation announced a competition offering a $20 million grand prize to the first nongovernment-funded business or organization that could get a spacecraft to the surface of the moon and have it successfully perform a few tasks: moving 500 meters, or 1,640 feet, to a second location, and beaming data and video back to Earth.
Eleven years later, the competition ended without any of the teams even attempting a launch. Some of the X Prize teams like Astrobotic and Ispace, the parent company of the Japanese Hakuto team, continued, believing that they could develop a profitable business without the prize money.
Among other ambitious business ideas: mining the moon for helium-3 for future fusion power plants on Earth. Rare earth metals used in electronics could also potentially be extracted from lunar soil and rocks.
The longtime rivalry between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos spans over 15 years. Publicly butting heads since 2004, the billionaires have taken part in unfriendly discourse over the years. While the two have competed in having the highest net worth, they’ve most notably engaged in a years-long space race with their respective reusable rocket companies. Read more here: https://people.com Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk’s Feud Timeline
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