Why It's Harder to Land on the Moon 50 Years After the Apollo Missions

On February 22, a small vessel the size of a phone booth, named Odysseus, made history by landing on the Moon's South Pole. Built by Intuitive Machines, a Houston-based company, Odysseus became the first American lander to touch the Moon in over 50 years and the first private lander to reach the lunar surface.


This achievement is a welcome breakthrough after a series of lunar failures. Indeed, of the nine previous attempts, five ended in failure for various nations and private companies. Shortly before, on January 19, Japan succeeded in its first lunar landing with SLIM, although the device ended up in a bad position due to an engine malfunction. Lunar landing attempts by other countries and companies have also experienced failures.


Only the governmental space agencies of five countries have managed to land on the Moon: the United States, the former Soviet Union, China, India, and Japan. To date, only a single private company, Intuitive Machines, has succeeded. These failures remind us that even half a century after the last steps of Apollo astronauts on the Moon, our celestial neighbor remains a difficult and dangerous destination.

Landing on the Moon is a significant challenge, notably due to the absence of an atmosphere that would allow the use of parachutes to slow spacecraft. Missions must therefore rely on fuel-powered propulsion systems to land, complicating the reduction of their speed from several thousands of miles per second to a perfect halt.

The Apollo program, though ultimately successful, experienced numerous failures before it managed to send humans to the Moon. These failures are considered part of the learning process, essential for overcoming the challenges of lunar exploration.

Today, the substantially lower costs of missions significantly increase the risk of failure, but are crucial for making flights affordable. The success of the Odysseus lander represents a significant victory for the commercial space industry, paving the way for future, more financially accessible lunar missions.

The achievement of Intuitive Machines highlights the growing importance of private companies in space exploration. With significantly lower mission costs, democratizing access to space will gradually become a reality.

The Cost of the Apollo Program

The Apollo program, which made history by sending men to the Moon between 1969 and 1972, represents one of the most expensive and ambitious ventures ever undertaken by humanity. The total cost of the Apollo program is estimated at around 25 billion dollars at the time, which equates to over 150 billion dollars when adjusted for current inflation.

This phenomenal budget included the development of cutting-edge technologies, the construction of gigantic spacecraft such as the Saturn V, and the implementation of manned and unmanned missions.

The Cost of Current Lunar Missions

Today, lunar exploration is characterized by a diversification of involved actors, including governmental space agencies and an increasing number of private companies. The cost of missions varies considerably depending on their nature (robotic or crewed missions), their objectives, and the chosen approach (governmental launches or public-private partnerships).

For instance, current robotic lunar missions can cost from a few hundred million to several billion dollars. NASA, through its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, has awarded contracts to private companies for amounts ranging from less than 100 million to several hundred million dollars per mission. These missions aim to send scientific instruments and small payloads to the Moon.


In April 2021, NASA awarded SpaceX a contract worth 2.89 billion dollars to develop a version of the Starship intended to transport astronauts to the Moon's surface as part of the Artemis program. This contract aims to achieve the landing of astronauts on the Moon for the first time since the end of the Apollo program in 1972.