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A private spacecraft from Israel will attempt a moon landing Thursday

arstechnica.com

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Re: A private spacecraft from Israel will attempt a moon landing Thursday

#22

Post by twic »

mtw wrote: post #19

If it's a private spacecraft, how do you make this work financially? How do you find $100m ? It's not like there are commercial opportunities possible on the moon. Or the technology would be re-used by Israel for rockets?

In April 2014, American philanthropist Sheldon Adelson donated US$16.4 million to the project,[13] and in June 2017, the Israeli Space Agency (ISA) announced a donation of additional 7.5 million ILS (US$2,083,333), after having donated 2 million ILS (US$555,556) in previous years.[14]

In November 2017, SpaceIL announced that they needed US$30 million to finish the project. Morris Kahn resigned from chairing the board, and promised $10M if the organization could raise the additional $20M.[20] The amount required was produced by a few major donors.[21]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceIL#History

Re: A private spacecraft from Israel will attempt a moon landing Thursday

#23

Post by nir »

tracer4201 wrote: post #5

Any word what imaging or video capabilities are on the lander? Would love to see video from the surface in 4K.

According to a post by one of the project's initiators, the lander will attempt to broadcast video from the moon's surface.

Success depends on the ultimate landing angle which will determine how much power its solar panels will be able to provide.

Re: A private spacecraft from Israel will attempt a moon landing Thursday

#24

Post by agildehaus »

mtw wrote: post #19

If it's a private spacecraft, how do you make this work financially? How do you find $100m ? It's not like there are commercial opportunities possible on the moon. Or the technology would be re-used by Israel for rockets?

http://www.spaceil.com/major-donors/

Looks mostly like their funding is from donors who want to promote Israel or STEM? They also received funding from the Israeli government, but I believe it was a small percentage (< 5%).

Re: A private spacecraft from Israel will attempt a moon landing Thursday

#25

Post by yonixw »

rosegarden0 wrote: post #21

I wonder why this news isn’t as widespread as SpaceX launches. I would have loved to follow this from the beginning! Whats the best place to stay updated about this specific mission? - what a time to be alive

You can watch the landing here [1] starting in 90min

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMdUcchBYRA

Re: A private spacecraft from Israel will attempt a moon landing Thursday

#26

Post by spaceheretostay »

rosegarden0 wrote: post #21

I wonder why this news isn’t as widespread as SpaceX launches. I would have loved to follow this from the beginning! Whats the best place to stay updated about this specific mission? - what a time to be alive

SpaceX's goals of creating a Mars colony with millions of people moving there in 20-60 years andreducing most long-distance travel on Earth to ~40 minutes create much wider audiences with huge excitement attached to every move. Also, Elon Musk is a celebrity and drives a lot of SpaceX interest.

Israel's SpaceIL is much smaller, has much more constrained focus and draws a smaller crowd due to the less-epic plans and less-known personalities. Not to take away from their accomplishments - I love this news story - but are lots of reasons that this is less-publicized as compared to SpaceX launches.

We all know that each successful SpaceX activity gets us closer to a Mars colony and that is super duper exciting.

Re: A private spacecraft from Israel will attempt a moon landing Thursday

#27

Post by adrianN »

Fjolsvith wrote: post #20

I wonder if it could be seen from earth by telescope.

The Keck Telescope has a 10m mirror, so it can resolve roughly 1.2 * 400n / 10 radians (at 400nm wavelength)[1]. The distance to the Moon is about 384000km. If you plug things into Wolfram Alpha [2], you get about 18m for the smallest object on the Moon that can be resolved by the Keck Telescope. I suppose that there are more technical problems that further limit the resolution. It seems unlikely that you'll be able to see anything using a telescope.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_resolution#Explanation

[2] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=tan((1.2*400nm+%2F+10m...

Re: A private spacecraft from Israel will attempt a moon landing Thursday

#28

Post by distant_hat »

yhersk0vitz wrote: post #17

2 hours to go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7GUHd554NY Also: "The competition has already announced that if Beresheet's landing goes as planned, the team will win a $1 million Moonshot Award."

If anyone deserves a Moonshot award, it has to be them.

Re: A private spacecraft from Israel will attempt a moon landing Thursday

#29

Post by dr_dshiv »

kaycebasques wrote: post #15

> a nascent commercial space effort that seeks to develop a base of economic activity on the Moon Can someone clue me in on what types of commercial activity will happen first?

Science first, but the biggest economic driver will be tourism and sports. Moonball will be the biggest sporting event broadcast on Earth. Jumping 20 feet for the dunk? Yes please.

But before team sports, dirtbiking will be a special once-in-a-lifetime moon tourist experience.

Going forward, there will be special culinary options due to the excessively large moonfruits that can be grown in low gravity.

The trip will only take a day of travel. Plenty of living room in those enormous natural moon caves (lava tubes). Let's have some fun up there.

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