Two Moon Landings in a Week—One Dead, One Alive—Aim to Kickstart the Lunar Economy
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Summary
Currently, a number of firms are looking at the moon as a potential source of commercial opportunities, and two private space firms undertook landings on the lunar surface this week alone, suggesting that space tourism is about to take off (no pun intended!).
Last Sunday, US startup Firefly Aerospace made history with its Blue Ghost lander in the Mare Crisium basin carrying 10 Nasa science experiments to gather data on the lunar surface.
However, the mission by Intuitive Machines suffered a setback when its Athena lander ended up on its side again, experiencing the same issues as its first landing last year, when the vehicle toppled over onto its side, limiting its ability to communicate and deploy experiments.
The growing interest in the moon reflects a broader desire to develop a space economy, with opportunities to exploit resources such as water ice to create rocket fuel and the rare isotope helium-3, which could be used to power fusion reactors and would be attractive to private companies looking to push further into the solar system and use the moon as a staging post.
