First commercial Moon mission marks new era for space travel

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68381392

The landing of a first commercial spacecraft on the Moon has sparked excitement about a new age of possibilities in the Solar System.

News of the touchdown of Odysseus near the lunar south pole was greeted with cheers by staff at American firm Intuitive Machines' (IM) mission control in Houston, Texas, on Thursday.

It is the first time an American craft has successfully landed on the Moon since 1972 - and the first time ever that a private company has done so.

But the giant leap for commercial kind could also help future state missions to the lunar surface and perhaps even aid plans to set up a lunar - or Martian - base for humans.

The fact that this mission almost failed - its laser rangefinder refused to power up, and a science instrument utilising a laser was hurriedly repurposed to perform the function - and a similar commercial mission flew out of control after launch last month, is a timely reminder of just how difficult this stuff is to pull off, especially when you don’t have massive the financial resources of the world’s richest nation behind you. NASA collaborated with this mission and with the failed Peregrine mission last month but these are true commercial efforts and the onus is on finding cost effective ways of doing things. It will take a while before commercial space companies like these get a good understanding of what they can do on a budget and what they can’t.

[Mr K]

Forget the moon, we need to get a decent train service on terra firma first. Priorities...

[Anonymouse]

We've heard this before. We've heard complaints that Apollo didn't pay its way. Cobblers. Electronics, ultrasound, weather warnings, CAT scans, satellites, we owe them all to Apollo - and for a cost so relatively small the average American didn't even feel it. They only failed to realise that because NASA has the worst public relations service you've ever heard of. Teddy Sanders had it right: "Every time something goes wrong, the world forgets why we fly." True. We do.
But like Carol Danvers, every time we fall down, we damn well get back up again. Apollo 1 didn't stop us. Nor did Apollo 13. Or Challenger. Or Columbia. Tragedies all, but they didn't stop us.
True, we need better trains. Hoo boy, do we. Buses, ditto. But they may well come as a result of space discoveries. At least I hope so.
I can testify that the 582 is a terrible bus service.