Poll: Rerun to the Moon!
“Who will be the first to return to the moon?”
- 72%:Â Â Elon Musk’s SpaceX
- 11%:Â Â US Space ForceÂ
- 9%:Â Â Â ChinaÂ
- 8%:Â Â Â Jeff Bezos’s Blue OriginÂ
There’s no one on the moon, but it does have useful resources like polar ice to collect.
Extraterrestrial real estate isn’t even up for grabs either due to the Outer Space Treaty – even if you plant a flag, but the moon still might be ripe for our first interplanetary base.Â
It’s no closer physically, but the idea of the moon being a “look, don’t touch” place is being challenged for the first time since Armstrong’s first small step. Awesome!
The Invstr community has been decisive in this poll, nominating a spaceman with a wild imagination. Elon Musk reckons he can land on the moon in less than two years, and he’s announced plans for #dearmoon, sending rich tourists up there on private trips.Â
This space tourism business is more the specialism of Virgin Galactic. It’s Musk who’s planning to lower the cost of space travel and send up satellites, assuming Jeff Bezos doesn’t beat him to the punch.Â
Jeff’s Blue Origin sub-orbital spaceflight services also center around lowering the cost of space travel, and “building a road to space” traveled by reusable rockets. Blue Origin is competing for government contracts. We might see an Amazon package delivered to the moon one day.
Blue Origin was started in 2000, and it’s funded solely by Jeff Bezos selling a billion-dollars of Amazon stock each year. There are no plans to go public yet, but that will need to happen eventually. Elon Musk also won’t take SpaceX public until it’s landed on Mars.
The private sector isn’t competing with the public sector, or so we’re told, but if it were a race then a small group of the Invstr community reckons government money would prove the most effective.
The Trump administration is sending up the United States Space Force for permanent “lunar habitation.” “We must have American dominance in space,” says Trump, but hurting his stock is a new Netflix comedy special showing the Space Force’s struggle to be taken seriously. That might have something to do with its poor poll performance!
And finally, if in doubt, vote China. It’s always hiding a grandiose masterplan up its sleeve. The Chinese National Space Administration is launching a lander on a rocket this year to go up and collect lunar samples for bringing back down to Earth. China will be next to go to the moon, but not with as bold ambitions as American rivals in pursuit!