The fact that the teams have so many different reasons for going “shows why lunar exploration is going to succeed,” says Gonzales-Mowrer. Their business goals range from Moon Express’s mission of harvesting lunar resources to Astrobotic’s aim of becoming a cargo delivery service. Many of the competitors-including Astrobotic, SpaceIL, and Moon Express-do have planned launches, even if they are still a few years out. “We are recognizing the moon as a resource, a stepping-stone, and as an asset.”Īll of this has helped build concrete businesses that will outlive the competition. He is referring to the race-car-like advertising options the company is offering on its spacecraft, as well as a potential service that would project ads on the lunar lander's surface. “We designed an unprecedented partnership opportunity for companies-specifically for companies not traditionally involved in space-to obtain value even before launch,” says ispace’s founder and CEO, Takeshi Hakamada. Corporate relationships were also key-some more unique than others. Some, like Moon Express and Team Indus, established contracts and ties with national space programs in the US and India, respectively. “When we launched in 2007, we were under the assumption launch contracts would be lower than what they were.” “The reality was it’s a lot of money to go to the moon,” says Chanda Gonzales-Mowrer, senior director of the Google Lunar X Prize.

At this point, more than $300 million has been raised by the competing teams.

That was actually relatively little money: to have any chance at winning, teams found, they needed much more. Indeed, though no one met the deadline, the competition had evolved into more than an attempt to win the $20 million prize. Astrobotic' Red Rover going for a test run on Earth. (Nothing lights money on fire quite like putting it into a rocket engine.) It’s difficult to convince a government to quickly put that much-or more-into a rocket of equivalent or greater power. In today’s dollars, the Saturn V rocket used in the Apollo program would cost about $1.16 billion. The motivation to go to the moon must come from a drive to explore, not to win.Įven though the costs of accessing space are decreasing, getting to the moon is not cheap. Now that same structure has to be rebuilt without the fervor of the Cold War pushing us forward. “This abnormal market structure removed the means to build the supply chain needed to support continual transportation of equipment, materials, and people to the moon.” “Instead of logical steps to build a sustainable model for continual access and operations on the moon, it was more of a leap to the surface of the moon,” says Blair DeWitt, CEO of Lunar Station Corporation (LSC), a moon data startup in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The priority was beating Russia, not building a clear path for future trips.

When the US made its first moon landing, NASA had taken the fastest route possible to get there. “People of the world have to take a leap of faith that you can build a business on the moon.”

Deliver us the moon time to beat