July 20, 1969, is a day in history that will never be forgotten. For the first time, a human stepped onto another celestial body, taking one small step for himself and one giant leap for mankind. We’ve been back to the moon several times after that in both manned and unmanned missions. However, since the retirement of the Saturn V Rockets and the introduction of the space shuttle program, space flight and exploration have been limited to Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
Until now.
In the past decade, we’ve seen a resurgence of space flight. Yet most of the money, talent, and advancement hasn’t come from national space agencies like NASA but companies like SpaceX, Northrup Gruman, Boeing, and Intuitive Machines. These companies are designing capsules, rockets, and landers that will be the future of space travel, given the current state of NASA finances.
Intuitive Machines just successfully landed their first of four planned moon landers. This was the first “soft-landed” American Moon landing since 1972 and the first private moon landing from any country. This mission, as well as the following two, are research-based, containing various sensors and equipment used for testing on the moon. The fourth currently planned mission is meant to be commercially based. Beyond research, the first three missions are also testing missions to ensure that the lander is sound and working.
This willingness to conduct tests before full commercial rollout has paid off because, during landing, the Odyssey spacecraft broke one of its landing gears and tipped over onto its side. Luckily, the antennas were still positioned in such a way to maintain communication with the Earth. Both NASA — which had a stake in the payload, and Intuitive received data and images from the lander during the 20 hours that the battery lasted before the lander died.
Even with the on-board breakdown, every member of this venture considers it a great success. Intuitive has showcased that its landers can go from LEO to the moon with only one issue that can easily be fixed in the future, and despite such an issue continues to function. NASA and other scientific agencies that sent experiments along with the craft got most of their data before the lander stopped working. Finally, the rocket that got the lander into LEO in the first place was a SpaceX reusable Falcon 9 booster, giving SpaceX excellent publicity and furthering its dominance in the American rocket industry.
It is undeniable that space is the future of humanity. Since we invented fire, we’ve always wondered what’s over the next hill, across that ocean, or at the top of the mountain. A drive to explore and to expand is written into what it means to be human. Certainly the risks are high, the costs astronomical, and the difficulty unimaginable. But the benefits of space exploration are utterly fantastic. This mission just proves that it’s American ingenuity, creativity, and drive that continues to choose to do amazing things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
