The tiny nation hosting a new space race

Luxembourg.  Source: BBC

I talked here about how SpaceX with its BFR will cut the cost of launching a kilogram of cargo into space from $22,000 to $180, a decline of more than 2 orders of magnitude.  Tony Seba says that if you get a cost decline of one order of magnitude, that will lead to "disruption", where a new technology replaces an older one, and leads to whole new industries emerging.  Think of mobile phones and the internet and the new industries these created (Uber, Amazon, Google, Netflix, blogging .....)  It's tempting to think, yeah, yeah, but that's all years away.  And yet the BFS (the upper stage of SpaceX's new giant rocket/spaceship combination) will be performing short "hops" in the first half of next year, before doing orbital launches in 2020.  Meanwhile, in one European country, space industries already make up 2% of GDP:

As a new space race gathers pace, many tech executives have sold Mars as humankind’s off-Earth destiny. But they may be looking too far afield. Our most immediate chance for life-beyond-Earth lies much closer, a path likely to be blazed by far lesser-known companies.

Building colonies on the Moon will “provide a blueprint to Mars”, Nasa scientists say. The men and women who will found these lunar settlements will in all likelihood be employed by small private mining companies, not tech tycoons. Many of these companies are connected to the tiny EU nation of Luxembourg.

Amazingly, Nasa believes such Moon colonies could be established within the next four years.

Takeshi Hakamada is one of those trying to boldly return to where humanity has set foot. This time, however, there is a much more commercial dream in mind: to scour the Moon for profitable mineral and gaseous resources, as well as life-sustaining lunar water.

Hakamada is the CEO of ispace, a private space exploration company based in Tokyo, which also has a presence in Luxembourg. It plans to complete a lunar orbit in 2020, and then attempt a soft lunar landing in 2021.

“Our first two missions will act as a demonstration of our technology. From there, we will begin to establish a high-frequency transportation service to bring customer payloads to the moon,” he says. “If we find water resources on the Moon, we can develop a whole new resource industry in space.” The discovery of a frozen water basin would be a monumental moment for our species, as it would allow humans to stay off Earth for longer periods.

Hakamada is far from alone in his cosmic ambitions. There now are 10 space-mining companies (including ispace) legally domiciled in Luxembourg since the launch of the country’s space resources law in February 2016. This was fuelled by a fund worth $223m (200m euros/£176m). For these space ventures, the Moon is one of two primary targets being considered; commercial ventures also are eyeing near-Earth asteroids for mining metallic resources (as covered in this recent story on BBC Future). Between the Moon and an estimated 16,000 near-Earth asteroids, the resources available could be rich enough to produce the world’s first trillionaire, some experts – including renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson – have said.

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