The moon is open for business, and entrepreneurs are racing to make billions
Story by Marianne Guenot
If NASA has its way, it will send astronauts back to the moon by the end of the decade, making them the first humans to walk on the lunar surface in over half a century.
But this isn’t just another scientific mission. This time around, NASA means business.
With its Artemis missions, the US space agency aims to lay the foundations for the first human settlements beyond Earth and pave the way for extraplanetary colonization. And business is at the core of its strategy.
“It’s not theoretical at this point — it’s happening,” Brendan Rosseau, a teaching fellow at Harvard Business School who focuses on the space economy, told Insider.
The agency is tagging private companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Nokia, Lockheed Martin, and General Motors, to develop solutions for its lunar missions such as space-worthy rides, moon streaming, lunar GPS, and more.