Beresheet 2: The latest in America’s inclusive return to the moon

Recently, NASA and the Israel Space Agency marked the 20th anniversary of the Columbia disaster, which claimed the lives of Israel’s first astronaut, Ilan Ramon, among others, by signing a cooperation agreement for the Beresheet 2 lunar mission. NASA will provide communications and technology services for Israel’s second attempt to land on the moon. In return, Israel will share the data collected by the mission. In April 2022, Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) signed a similar agreement.

Beresheet 2 is scheduled for launch to the moon in 2025. It will consist of two small landers that will land on two separate areas of the lunar surface and an orbiter that will conduct a multi-year mission. Israel hopes it will be more successful than the first beresheet that landed on the moon in April 2019. Like its predecessor, Beresheet 2 is managed by SpaceIl, a private Israeli company.

Beresheet 2 is the latest lunar mission in which NASA has become a key partner. The other is the Hakuto-R M1, a Japanese lander that also includes a UAE rover named Rashid. Hakuto will be launched from a SpaceX Falcon 9 and is scheduled to land on the moon in March 2023.

NASA’s partnerships with allied countries in support of its lunar exploration missions are a crucial difference between the current NASA-led Artemis program and the Apollo race to the moon in the 1960s. Both Artemis and Apollo were expressions of American soft political power and undertook the inspirational feat of sending astronauts to the moon for prestige. But Artemis is approaching the effort differently than the 50-year-old Apollo moon missions.

President John F. Kennedy delivered two speeches justifying Apollo’s race to the moon, one before a joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961, and the other at Rice University on September 12, 1962. The essence of why he thought we should go to the moon was expressed in a line from the first speech. “No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind or more important to long-term space exploration; and none will be as difficult or expensive to achieve,” Kennedy said.

The Apollo 11 moon landing was certainly impressive. In fact, America’s victory in the moon race was a crucial factor in winning the Cold War. The Soviet leadership never recovered from the humiliation.

Fast forward to 2017 and the start of the Artemis program. Unlike in the 1960s, significantly more players, both international and commercial, were able to at least attempt to land robotic probes on the lunar surface. NASA’s ingenious game was to offer its support to any friendly nation that proposed to land on the moon.

Not only does NASA’s brand imply that it is the only organization that has landed humans on the moon; It’s also enjoying a slew of new achievements, including the Artemis I mission. Apart from some unfriendly powers like China and Russia, what country in the world wouldn’t want the help of the American space agency in its own moonshot?

It should also be noted that NASA is instrumental in enabling a commercial lunar transport sector under the Commercial Lunar Payload Systems (CLPS) program. Private companies organize expeditions to the moon with the participation of NASA. Intuitive Machines, Astrobotic Technology and Masten Space Systems are slated for private lunar imaging in 2023. The very concept of commercial lunar expeditions was unthinkable during the Apollo era.

When humans first landed on the moon, most of the world’s people were passive observers. Now that people are returning to the moon more than 50 years later, the world, including friendly countries and private companies, has become an active participant. When humans next set foot on the moon, this time to establish a base from which to delve into the moon’s scientific mysteries and exploit its resources, the world, and not just NASA, will have returned.

A similarity between Artemis and Apollo is that a race to the moon has been heating up, this time with China. The Chinese lunar effort is robust but also cloaked in nationalism and imperial reach. China’s lunar program is not included. While there has been talk of a Sino-Russian lunar axis, Moscow has squandered too much blood and treasure in the Ukraine war to be an effective partner. So China is going it alone.

America’s inclusive return to the moon vies with China’s exclusive return. We’ll see which, to paraphrase JFK’s words using modern parlance, is “more impressive to mankind.”

Mark R. Whittington is the author of the space exploration studies Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?, The Moon, Mars and Beyond, and Why is America Going Back to the Moon? He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.