“Houston, Odysseus has found its new home.”
With these words America announced its return to the surface of the Moon for the first time in 52 years.
The US-based company Intuitive Machines successfully landed its Odysseus lunar robot near the Moon’s south pole yesterday morning Australian time.
It’s the first time a privately built vehicle has soft-landed on the surface.
The lander was launched from Earth by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and carried an array of scientific instruments, including six for the US space agency NASA.
After last-minute difficulties and a nail-biting wait, the company confirmed the vehicle was upright and transmitting data.
Experts say the success of the mission will lead to a surge of public and private investment in lunar missions.
Here are some of our readers’ questions, answered.
Why did America return to the Moon?
An American vehicle hasn’t softly touched down on the Moon’s grey dirt since NASA’s Apollo 17 lander — and its crew — did so in December 1972.
At the time, the US promoted the Apollo missions as achievements for all humanity.
Responding to the Odysseus news, NASA administrator Bill Nelson echoed some of that Space Age rhetoric.
“What a triumph! Odysseus has taken the Moon,” he said in a video message.
“This feat is a giant leap forward for all of humanity. Stay tuned!”
Like in the Cold War, soft power is one reason to go to the Moon, said Alice Gorman, a space archaeologist at Flinders University.
“This is a matter of national prestige,” she said.
“It’s about cementing the US’s place as a pre-eminent nation in space.”
This time, America’s main rival is China, said Paddy Neumann, a rocket scientist with the University of Adelaide.
“America wants to show it can still compete in this area.”
In the past 11 years, China has landed unmanned craft on the Moon three times and even brought back lunar samples.
NASA’s Artemis program aims to send astronauts back to the Moon, including the first woman, as soon as 2026.
The scientific instruments on board IM-1 will pave the way for this proposed moon base, including helping study the behaviour of lunar dust, which can scratch and clog equipment.
“One of the big unsolved problems is how to do anything on the Moon’s surface without lunar dust getting in the way,” Dr Gorman said.
“People are assuming this problem will be solved.”
So is it all about national prestige?
No. There’s a mix of other scientific and commercial reasons to go the Moon.
First, frozen water in permanently shadowed craters near the south pole could be used to manufacture fuel for missions to Mars.
“The question used to be asked, ‘Should we go to the Moon or Mars?’ And now the answer is, ‘We go to the Moon and Mars,'” Dr Gorman said.
That is, the Moon could be a Mars staging post.
But why go to Mars? Partly because it’s there, Dr Gorman said.
“Mars is symbolic.”
Dr Neumann said going to Mars was an extension of humanity’s “seemingly innate desire to see what’s over the next hill”.
There are also scientific reasons to make the long trip to the Red Planet, including the chance of finding extraterrestrial microbial life there — or at least fossil evidence that it once existed.
But the Moon isn’t just a stepping stone to Mars. There are long-term plans to mine the surface for metals such as iron, titanium and aluminium, either for constructing machines and buildings on the Moon, or to send back to Earth.
The Moon is also home to a rare isotope helium-3 that — in theory — could be used to power fusion reactors.
“We don’t have the fusion reactors ready for that,” Dr Neumann noted.
The US is blowing its trumpet, but haven’t other nations been to the Moon recently?
Yes! Several.
As mentioned, in 2020 China’s Chang’e-5 brought the first lunar samples back to Earth in more than 40 years.
In August last year, India’s Chandrayaan-3 became the first craft to land near the Moon’s south pole.
And in January this year, Japan’s “Moon sniper” lunar probe, SLIM, successfully touched down as well.
Other countries – such as Israel, South Korea and numerous member states of the European Space Agency – have also placed robotic spacecraft into lunar orbit.
“There is a much greater diversity of players now,” Dr Gorman said.
“It’s actually good to have more than the US and Russia out there.”
The Australian Space Agency is building a semi-autonomous rover that will launch to the Moon as early as 2026 in partnership with NASA.
Its name? “Roo-ver.”
So is this a new “space race”?
It depends on who you ask.
NASA administrator Bill Nelson said in January that the US was in a “space race” with China.
“We better watch out that they don’t get to a place on the Moon under the guise of scientific research,” he said.
“And it is not beyond the realm of possibility that they say, ‘Keep out, we’re here, this is our territory.'”
But many scientists are critical of this terminology, for different reasons.
Dr Gorman said it emphasised competitiveness not cooperation, when the idea of space as a common province of humanity is enshrined in law.
The 1967 Outer Space Treaty signed by a majority of countries establishes that space will be freely explored and used by all nations.
Dr Neumann said the term “race” implied that, at some point, there would be an end to the exploration.
“But space goes on forever,” he said.
That said, the Moon doesn’t go on forever. Even though countries can’t claim sovereignty over a patch of the lunar surface, there are ways to effectively control an area, Dr Neumann said.
“Both the Chinese and Americans are interested in the same areas around the south pole of the Moon.”
India, which was instrumental in identifying water on the Moon in 2008, is also targeting the south pole.
The ideal lunar real estate is an area with mountains in permanent sunlight, which can be used to generate solar, near a deep, permanently shadowed crater where there’s ice.
“And if you get there and put your base on that mountain-top first, then congratulations. But commiserations for everyone else, because they’ll have to either talk to you nicely and cooperate, or pick another mountain top that’s not so good.”
In 2020, the US drafted the “Artemis Accords” establishing a framework for cooperation in the exploration and peaceful use of the Moon, Mars and other astronomical objects.
So far, 36 parties, including Australia, India, Japan and the US, but not China, have signed the non-binding agreement.
Dr Neumann said there seem to be two power blocs forming.
“One is led by the Chinese, one is led by the Americans.”
Why are private companies queuing up to go the Moon?
The past four years have seen companies from Israel, Japan and the US launch failed lunar missions.
Then there’s all the other emerging space services companies, from SpaceX to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.
These private companies have so far mostly survived on fat public sector contracts, Dr Gorman said.
NASA paid Intuitive Machines US$118 million to help develop the IM-1 mission.
And that’s just the beginning. NASA has earmarked billions in private sector spending to support its space program.
Unlike in the Apollo era, NASA’s strategy is to let private companies handle routine missions at lower cost.
The goal is to ultimately develop what it calls a “lunar economy” where private companies buy and sell services, such as habitation and transport, or resources, such as oxygen or water.
Dr Neumann, who’s also the founder of an Australian company developing propulsion systems and other technologies, said venture capitalists see money to be made on the Moon.
“It puts the venture into venture capital,” he said.
So what does IM-1’s success mean for the future lunar missions?
The success of the mission will ultimately embolden NASA and space-faring private companies, Dr Neumann said.
“If one small company can do it, other small companies can.”
This will be good news for Australia’s growing commercial space sector, as well as local companies that operate ground stations for communication between the Earth and the Moon.
In May, China plans to launch the Chang’e-6 mission to bring back samples from the far side of the Moon.
NASA also plans to send several robotic rovers and satellites to the Moon to search for water later this year.
And the upcoming Artemis II mission planned for next year will see four astronauts loop around the Moon and return to Earth.
Dr Gorman agreed that the successful landing would see more private and public investment in going to the Moon.
“There’ll be an impetus to increase the number of these commercial partnerships,” she said. “It changes the narrative around the Moon.”
Apart from the investment dollars, she added, the mission could mark another more subtle change.
Years from now, we may look back on this week’s landing as a historic step towards the commercial exploitation of the Moon’s resources.
“This is happening really quickly,” Dr Gorman said.
“The Moon is is turning from the beautiful pearly object hanging in the sky … to an industrial site.”
Get all the latest science stories from across the ABC.