Lunar science and technology missions must be protected to enable future revenue opportunities

The nexus for the lunar market must shift towards the establishment of a clear roadmap where science and technology (S&T) development funding gets more protection following the current US administration’s proposals to make large cuts to the funding for NASA’s Artemis programme. S&T missions are intended to provide a solid base upon which opportunities to generate significant revenue, such as building infrastructure and sending crewed missions to the Moon, will be built. Indeed, S&T is key to understanding the environment and behaviours of our natural satellite to enable a prosperous and stable lunar economy and future settlement by humans.