The world’s first private mission to the Moon is presumed to have crashed after communication with the spacecraft was lost before the expected touchdown, but experts believe it does not have to be considered a failure.
Japanese start-up company ispace was all set for its Hakuto-R Mission 1 (M1) lander to touch down on the Moon on Wednesday (AEST).
In a statement on Wednesday afternoon, ispace said it is “highly likely” the lander made a “hard landing” on the lunar surface.
If M1 had landed, it would have been the first privately-led mission to land on the lunar surface.
However, deputy director of the Australian National University Institute for Space Dr Cassandra Steer told The New Daily this mission was by no means a failure, but rather a lesson.
Tweet from @ispace_inc
Hard to land on the Moon
There are a few reasons why it is so difficult to land on the Moon. Even before launch, sufficient fuel and oxygen need to be considered for the roughly 384,400-kilometre journey.
Once close enough to the Moon, the spacecraft gets into a lunar orbit, though it can’t get too close too quickly because the Moon’s gravity is quite weak, Dr Steer said.
The next problem is figuring out how to land – the spacecraft moves quickly but needs a soft landing.
“It’s just a technologically extremely complex thing to do and there’s a million things that can go wrong,” Dr Steer said.
Although difficult, it has been done by the US, Chinese and Russian government space agencies.
The last time a person stepped foot on the Moon was back in 1972. Since then, technology has improved along with an understanding of space.
But money is a barrier that is preventing countries from venturing there.
“The public money that was being spent on the Apollo program was just immense,” Dr Steer said.
“It had a fair amount of support at its peak because it meant that the US won the space race against the Soviets.”
The Soviets had a leg up on the Americans at the height of the space race claiming a few firsts, but with Apollo reaching the Moon first, it gave the US an “ideological, political as well as technological advantage” over the competing superpower, Dr Steer said.
A commercial proposition
In the 20th century only national governments had the resources to build satellites, space programs and send people to the Moon.
But now companies, and a few individuals, have the resources to try.
Just because no one has left a footprint on the Moon since the 1970s, doesn’t mean there hasn’t been huge advancements in space. In the 21st century, space has become cheaper to access, largely due to commercialisation, Dr Steer said.
Most satellites are commercially owned and they feature in nearly every aspect of our lives from communication, navigation, banking, and the weather.
“So commercialisation has actually led to massive, exciting changes in space technology and accessibility to those technologies,” Dr Steer said.
There’s a new race to the Moon, with several countries eager to get back there – and they can’t do it without commercial partners, Dr Steer said.
Tweet from @NASA
There will likely be some presence on the Moon in the next five to 10 years, Dr Steer said, though that presence will most likely be robotic.
However, the race to the Moon will be about resources.
“Countries and therefore companies are trying to find the best spots where they can find ice to make water and gases like helium that they can use to create fuel,” Dr Steer said.
And if countries and companies treat resources in space like they do on Earth, then we might have a problem.
“I think in human history, whenever there’s a competition for resources, there’s a tendency for that to lead to conflict,” Dr Steer said.
Geopolitics of space
Space isn’t lawless (there’s the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, for example) so countries and, by extension, companies are responsible for what goes on beyond our atmosphere.
However, there’s no escaping the geopolitical tensions on Earth, even in space.
“Everything that’s ever happened in space with human activity has been an expression of geopolitics,” Dr Steer said.
With resources up for grabs, there is a risk of conflict in, or surrounding space, though it won’t be anything like Star Wars, Dr Steer said.
Conflict in space could also feed into conflicts on Earth and add to political pressures.
Amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, satellites have become potential targets; even Elon Musk said Starlink has become a more frequent target of Russia’s cyber attacks.
“[Terrestrial political tensions are] going to increase and it may be that we find ourselves in a very tense situation around the Moon, or because of what’s going on around the Moon in terms of what happens on Earth.”
Dr Steer admits it sounds dystopian, but adds on a more positive note, there are organisations comprised of academics, civil society experts, some governments and former astronauts that are working to ensure safety in space.
Such organisations include the Global Expert Group on Sustainable Lunar Activities (GEGSLA) and For All Mankind.
