Nations realize they need to take risks or lose the race to the moon

The NASA-led Artemis-3 mission will place the first human boots on the surface of the moon since Apollo 17's Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt left the lunar surface in December 1972.

The goal of the Artemis program is to establish a permanent human presence on Earth's natural satellite and an economy based around the moon. Artemis-3 is scheduled for no sooner than September 2026. However, further delays are likely and there are many technical challenges yet to overcome. Some might wonder whether it is going to happen at all.

I am convinced it will, because unlike the Apollo program, which would be unaffordable in today's climate, the current lunar endeavor will pay off in financial and exploration terms. Extracting water ice from craters at the lunar south pole could facilitate journeys from the moon to other destinations such as Mars, bringing down the cost of space exploration.

This is why the booming space industry seems fixed on the moon as a destination right now—countries simply cannot afford to miss this boat. The space sector can boost whole economies.

In the 1960s, the space race was driven mostly by Cold War-era political and military muscle flexing. There is still some of that in addition to the rush for resources. After 1972, human spaceflight became limited to low Earth orbit as the US switched from the Apollo spacecraft to the space shuttle. But in the 2000s, the US announced that it would be building new space vehicles to ferry astronauts to deep space destinations such as the moon.

Private pioneers

That same decade, the US also made a strategic decision to employ the ingenuity and cost effectiveness of young companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin. Owned by some of the world's richest entrepreneurs—Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, respectively—they are marked on the outside by passion and risk-taking, but are based on solid business models.

SpaceX's enormous Starship vehicle was contracted by NASA to ferry Artemis astronauts between the proposed Gateway station orbiting the moon and the lunar surface. Starships were destroyed on each of their first three test flights. However, the pace at which problems are rectified is remarkable, and a year later, the fourth integrated test flight of Starship saw both the upper stage and Super Heavy rocket make soft landings.

This reaffirms SpaceX's competence in breaking frontiers of innovation and to provide reliable, affordable services. It is renowned for its upright return landings of launch vehicles—essential for human missions to and from the surfaces of the moon and Mars. However, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin has been contracted to land the Artemis-5 crew on the moon later this decade, with its own lander. NASA clearly does not want to place all its eggs in one basket.