Two moon landers have hit the headlines this week, marking a new phase in a second ‘space race’ after 50 years.
The past few days have seen not only the first-ever commercial lander to arrive safely on the moon, but also Japan’s moon lander ‘reawakening’ after a two-week lunar night (equivalent to two Earth weeks) and making contact.
The new space race has been fuelled in part by (relatively) cheap reusable rockets from Elon Musk’s Space X, with the three leaders (China, Russia and the US) aiming to claim territory and harvest resources including minerals in space.
Analyst Morgan Stanley has suggested that the global space industry could be worth $1 trillion annually by 2040.
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Both the United States and Russia (in partnership with China) aim to build bases on the moon.
In total, more than 80 countries now have a presence in space, with the fast-growing economies of China, India and Japan major players.
Continue here: yahoo
