Review: Lunar Commerce

by Jeff Foust
Monday, March 17, 2025

Lunar Commerce: A Primer
by Derek Webber
Springer, 2024
hardcover, 208 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-3-031-53420-1
US$39.99

Commercial activities are off to a shaky start on the Moon. So far only one company can claim a fully successful (or reasonably close) lunar landing: Firefly Aerospace, whose Blue Ghost 1 lander signed off Sunday night shortly after sunset at its Mare Crisium landing site. Israel’s SpaceIL and Japan’s ispace crashed attempting to landing on the Moon (a second ispace lander is enroute for a landing in June), Astrobotic’s Peregrine suffered a propulsion malfunction that kept it from attempting a landing, and Intuitive Machines’ two landers both landed on the Moon but ended up on their sides, with its second mission earlier this month causing the mission to end barely 12 hours after landing.

Nonetheless, commercial ventures will play a critical role in plans to return to and stay on the Moon. NASA is relying on commercial services not just for robotic landers but also crewed landers by Blue Origin and SpaceX, allowing the companies to offer those landers to any other customers. The same approach is being used for lunar spacesuits, rovers, and communications services. NASA is betting that it will not be the only customers, and perhaps someday not even the largest, customer for those lunar services.

But what exactly is the market for lunar activities? That’s the focus of Lunar Commerce, a book by Derek Webber, who led an effort called the Lunar Commerce Portfolio that attempted to define commercial lunar activities and estimate their value.

Webber starts the book with some background about lunar activities, crediting the current surge in interest in commercial activities on the Moon to SpaceX and the Google Lunar X Prize. SpaceX, of course, for its efforts in reducing launch costs, enabling activities that might previously have required a government budget. The prize, meanwhile, was not won, but triggered a surge of interest in commercial lunar landings, leading to companies like Astrobotic and ispace that are today flying lunar missions.

Much of the book steps through the analysis that the Lunar Commerce Portfolio, a project affiliated with the Moon Village Association, performed to identify lunar markets, applications, and values. They range from transportation and infrastructure on the Moon to mining, manufacturing, and even tourism.

And how big could those markets be? Webber says that in the most optimistic of four scenarios, one where the Moon is “fully open for business” with sustained government and commercial presence, annual revenue could reach $31 billion, with 80% of that coming from commercial activities, in a “Mature Phase” some time after 2030. “It does not seem unreasonable in any obvious way,” he concludes. “It is what it is: the outcome from all of our data, assumptions, and understandings.”

That amount is not trivial, but it is also relatively modest. The satellite industry reported $285 billion in revenue in 2023, according to a study by the Satellite Industry Association, an industry group. That included $110 billion in satellite services like communications and $150 billion in ground equipment. (The actual construction and launch of satellites remain small fractions of the overall industry, which has been true for many years.)

The bigger question, one beyond the scope of this book, is whether lunar commerce can be profitable at those projected revenues and provide investors with an acceptable return on investment. If it can, the Moon might well be open to business for those interested in its resources or for hosting private travelers. If not, companies will need to continue to rely on NASA and other governments, motivated by factors other than the bottom line, to pursue their lunar dreams.

Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.

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