Ms. Boyle is a journalist based in Colorado Springs.
The moon stands alone. It is unique in the known cosmos: a solitary rock one-fourth the width of its host planet, the only place life has ever been found. And the moon is alone: It is a desolate, sunbaked and crater-pocked wasteland that harbors little except what we bring to it, either with our minds or with our spaceships. But that is about to change. Cells And Organs Respond
In the coming weeks, a rocket is expected to burst from Earth’s atmosphere and send a spacecraft called Nova-C careening toward the moon’s south pole. If all goes as planned, Nova-C, built by the private company Intuitive Machines, under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, will touch down on the moon about seven days later, bearing suites of scientific instruments. It will also carry a collection of narratives stored on microfiche disks, several cameras and a series of small sculptures made by the artist Jeff Koons that will be encased in a cube and stay on the moon in perpetuity.
February’s expected launch will quickly follow another company’s failed lunar landing attempt. Peregrine, built by Astrobotic Technology under another Commercial Lunar Payload Services contract, successfully flew into space on Jan. 8, but its mission was cut short because of a fuel leak. It failed to be the first private mission to land on the moon, but Nova-C could succeed — and so could the one after that, and many more. Though such an outlook may feel like a compelling next step for humanity’s cosmic ambitions, it also portends a dismaying future where the moon becomes a hotbed of unregulated human enterprise that will irreversibly transform it.
Humans have not touched the moon since the end of the Apollo program in 1972, and robots touch it only sporadically via expensive, government-funded efforts that often fail. But what is likely to happen in February is new. For the first time, the moon will be occupied by private capital, including small startups whose aims transcend science and exploration, launching landers and capsules. These missions are still heavily subsidized by NASA and other space agencies seeking a return to the moon for good, mostly through NASA’s Artemis program, which now aims to land the first woman astronaut on the moon by 2026. The Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, as part of Artemis, encourages private companies to build landers and even rovers that NASA can pay to use, as opposed to the traditional approach of NASA-built equipment. That means even if they are carrying government-sponsored science experiments, the new privately built, commercially funded landers can choose to add other nonscientific payloads purchased by other customers.
The freedom to choose any payload could lead to controversy. Nova-C will use thermal-reflective coatings designed by the sportswear brand Columbia; a company website shows an artist’s concept of the Columbia logo prominently displayed on the spacecraft as it sits on the lunar surface. The failed Peregrine lander was carrying small amounts of cremated human remains. In 2019, an Israeli lander carried a few thousand dehydrated tardigrades, microscopic creatures that can survive in the vacuum of space. It’s unclear what happened to them when the lander crashed, but the attempt raised new concerns about bringing biological materials to the moon. Future launches will attempt to send more cremated human remains to the moon, as well as time capsules, messages and other materials bound to raise various objections.
This new era of lunar missions is likely to change humanity’s relationship to the moon. Before this happens, we owe ourselves — and the moon itself — a more thoughtful consideration of what our planet’s only natural satellite represents. Anything we do to it will last forever. We have an enormous responsibility to the moon’s future, and to the future of anyone else who lives here beside it.
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