Lunar, Cislunar and Settlement Economics:
What the Moon Costs and Who Pays
The Moon is still a government market priced per kilogram. Small commercial landers deliver payloads for about $0.7–1 million per kilogram, and only one of six commercial landing attempts since 2023 was a clean success. Starship- and Blue Moon-class landers could cut the cost floor to $3,800–100,000 per kilogram, but only once orbital refuelling works, which had not been demonstrated by October 2026. NASA flew Artemis II in April 2026, moved the first landing to Artemis IV in early 2028, paused Gateway and set out a $20 billion Moon Base with a reactor by 2030. Lunar propellant pays only above about 100 tonnes a year; a person-year in an early base costs about $1 billion.
- ~$1M
- Per kg, small landers
- 1 of 6
- Clean landings since 2023
- ~$1B
- Per person-year, early base
- 180 min
- Read, 60 chapters
Chapters
What each chapter answers
- 015 min · Free
Executive Summary and Reading Guide
What does each layer of the lunar economy cost, who pays for it, and what would it take to go from short visits to a permanent settlement?
Key figuresRanking - 023 min · Free
Method: from Mission to Cost Stack
How does this study turn a lunar mission, a base or a settlement into numbers that can be compared?
- 033 min · Free
Why the Moon, Again: Policy, Accords and Rivalry
Why are governments spending tens of billions of dollars to return to the Moon more than fifty years after Apollo?
Ranking - 043 min · Subscribers
What Apollo Teaches About Lunar Cost
What did it cost to land people on the Moon the first time, and what does that history tell us about today's programmes?
Key figures - 053 min · Subscribers
Artemis in October 2026: What Has Flown, What Has Moved
Where does NASA's Artemis programme stand in October 2026, and what changed in the February restructuring?
TimelineComparison - 063 min · Subscribers
SLS and Orion: the Cost of the Government Stack
What does the government-owned part of Artemis cost per flight, and why has it survived repeated attempts to cancel it?
SplitRanking - 072 min · Subscribers
A Crewed Landing Mission, Line by Line
What does one crewed lunar landing mission cost in the Artemis architecture, item by item, and which items could fall?
Ranking - 083 min · Subscribers
Human Landing Systems: Starship and Blue Moon
Who is building the vehicles that will put astronauts on the Moon, what has NASA paid, and how ready are they?
Comparison - 093 min · Subscribers
The Refuelling Problem: Why Lander Cost Hides in Tanker Flights
Why does a crewed lunar landing now depend on moving hundreds of tonnes of cryogenic propellant between spacecraft in orbit, and how mature is that technology?
RankingTimeline - 103 min · Subscribers
Gateway: from Lunar Station to Spare Parts
What happened to the Gateway station in lunar orbit, and where does its hardware and money go?
- 113 min · Subscribers
NASA's Lunar Money: FY2026, FY2027 and the Reconciliation Law
How much does the United States spend on the Moon each year, where does it go, and how secure is it?
RankingRange chart - 123 min · Subscribers
CLPS: the Record of Commercial Landers, 2019–2026
What has NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services programme bought, and what has actually reached the surface?
Timeline - 133 min · Subscribers
Why Landers Fail
Why do so many lunar landings go wrong, and are the causes the kind that experience fixes?
Split - 143 min · Subscribers
Case Study: Blue Ghost Mission 1, Anatomy of a Clean Landing
What did Firefly Aerospace do differently on Blue Ghost Mission 1, the only fully successful commercial lunar landing so far, and what does it teach buyers?
Key figures - 153 min · Subscribers
Case Study: IM-1 and IM-2, Landing on the Edge
What happened to Intuitive Machines' two landers near the south pole, and what do partial successes mean for the company and its customers?
Comparison - 164 min · Subscribers
What a Kilogram on the Moon Costs Today
What does NASA pay per kilogram for commercial delivery to the lunar surface, and what does a failure do to that price?
Ranking - 174 min · Subscribers
The Delivery Cost Stack: Launch, Transfer, Landing, Operations
What makes up the cost of putting one kilogram on the lunar surface, and how does it change from a small commercial lander to a Starship-class cargo lander?
Ranking - 183 min · Subscribers
The Gear Ratio: the Rocket Equation for Decision-Makers
Why does every kilogram on the Moon need about five kilograms in Earth orbit, and what can reduce that ratio?
Ranking - 193 min · Subscribers
Heavy Cargo: Starship, Blue Moon and Argonaut
Who will deliver tonnes rather than kilograms to the Moon, and when?
Range chart - 203 min · Subscribers
The Procurement Pipeline: Moon Base Awards and CLPS 2.0
What contracts will lunar companies compete for between 2026 and 2035, and how large are they?
Ranking - 213 min · Subscribers
Insurance and Risk Transfer for Lunar Missions
Can lunar missions be insured, who bears the risk of failure today, and how could that change?
- 223 min · Subscribers
Cislunar Transport: Orbits, Tugs and Relays
How do spacecraft move between Earth orbit, lunar orbit and the surface, and is there a business in the space between?
- 233 min · Subscribers
Communications and Navigation: LunaNet, Moonlight and Queqiao
How will spacecraft and astronauts on the Moon talk to Earth and find their position, and who is paid to provide it?
- 244 min · Subscribers
Surviving the Night: the 354-Hour Problem
Why is the lunar night the defining engineering and cost constraint for a base, and what does it cost to get through it?
Ranking - 253 min · Subscribers
Surface Power: Solar, Batteries, RTGs and Fission
Which power sources will run lunar operations, and what does each cost per kilowatt delivered to the surface?
Ranking - 263 min · Subscribers
Lunar Reactor-1: Fission Power on the Moon by 2030
What is NASA's plan for a nuclear reactor on the Moon, how big is it, and how realistic is the 2030 date?
Timeline - 273 min · Subscribers
Mobility: the Lunar Terrain Vehicle and Pressurised Rovers
How will astronauts and robots move across the Moon, and how is NASA buying the vehicles?
- 283 min · Subscribers
Dust, Radiation and Thermal Extremes: the Environment Tax
What does the lunar environment do to hardware and people, and how much does it add to the cost of operating there?
- 294 min · Subscribers
NASA's Moon Base Plan: Three Phases, $20 Billion
What is NASA's plan for a permanent base near the lunar south pole, what does it include, and is $20 billion enough?
- 303 min · Subscribers
Water Ice: Evidence versus Hype
How much water is on the Moon, where is it, and how sure are we?
Ranking - 313 min · Subscribers
Oxygen, Metals and Building Materials from Regolith
What can be made from ordinary lunar soil, without ice, and is it worth making?
- 323 min · Subscribers
Helium-3: Market, Price and Physics
Is helium-3 from the Moon a real business, and if so, how big?
Key figures - 333 min · Subscribers
ISRU Propellant: Making Fuel on the Moon versus Shipping It
Why would anyone make rocket propellant on the Moon, who would buy it, and how big would the plants need to be?
Range chart - 343 min · Subscribers
ISRU Break-Even: When Local Propellant Pays
At what scale and transport price does making propellant on the Moon become cheaper than shipping it from Earth?
Ranking - 353 min · Subscribers
Mining Law and Property Rights
Can a company own what it extracts from the Moon, and can anyone own the ground it extracts from?
Timeline - 363 min · Subscribers
Safety Zones and the Crowded South Pole
Why are so many missions heading to the same few square kilometres near the lunar south pole, and what happens when they meet?
- 373 min · Subscribers
Science Demand: What Scientists Want from the Moon
What do scientists want to do on the Moon, and how much will science budgets pay for lunar access?
Ranking - 382 min · Subscribers
Commercial Demand Beyond NASA
Who besides governments will pay for anything on or around the Moon, and how much?
- 392 min · Subscribers
The Lunar Economy in 2035: a Market Map
How large could each layer of the lunar economy be by 2035, and how much of it would be open to commercial companies?
Range chart - 403 min · Subscribers
The Companies: Who Builds the Lunar Economy
Which companies hold lunar contracts, what do they do, and what are their strengths and weaknesses?
- 413 min · Subscribers
China's Lunar Programme: Chang'e, Mengzhou and Lanyue
How far has China's lunar programme come, what is planned, and how credible is a Chinese crewed landing before 2030?
Timeline - 422 min · Subscribers
The ILRS and the Two Lunar Blocs
How is the China-led International Lunar Research Station organised, who has joined, and what does a two-bloc Moon mean for business?
Ranking - 433 min · Subscribers
The Race: Who Lands Crew First, and Does It Matter?
Will the United States or China land astronauts first in this era, and what difference would it make?
Ranking - 442 min · Subscribers
Europe: Argonaut, Moonlight and Astronaut Seats
What is Europe's role in the lunar economy, what is it paying for, and what does it get?
- 452 min · Subscribers
Japan and India
What are Japan and India doing on the Moon, and how do they fit into the two blocs?
Ranking - 462 min · Subscribers
Other Nations: Gulf States, Korea, Israel, Canada and Others
Which other countries have lunar programmes or roles, and what are they buying?
- 473 min · Subscribers
Habitats: Options and Mass
What kinds of habitat could house people on the Moon, how heavy are they, and what do they cost?
Range chart - 483 min · Subscribers
Life Support Closure and Logistics Mass per Person-Year
How much mass must be shipped each year to keep one person alive on the Moon, and how much can recycling save?
Ranking - 493 min · Subscribers
Construction on the Moon: Pads, Berms and Printed Shells
What can be built on the Moon with local materials, and what is worth building first?
- 503 min · Subscribers
The Cost of a Person-Year on the Moon
What does it cost to keep one person living on the Moon for a year, and what would bring that cost down by an order of magnitude?
SplitRanking - 513 min · Subscribers
Health, Medicine and Crew Time
How long can people safely stay on the Moon, and how much of their time can go to useful work?
Ranking - 523 min · Subscribers
Settlement Scenarios, 2040–2060
What could human presence on the Moon look like by 2040, 2050 and 2060, and what would have to be true for each scenario?
Ranking - 533 min · Subscribers
Who Would Pay for a Settlement
If a permanent settlement costs billions of dollars a year, who could pay for it, and in what form?
- 542 min · Subscribers
Mars as a Comparison
Is the Moon a step towards Mars or a competitor for the same money, and how do the economics compare?
- 552 min · Subscribers
Implications by Reader
What should different decision-makers take from this study?
- 563 min · Subscribers
Due-Diligence Checklist for a Lunar Company or Programme
What should a lender, partner, customer or government reviewer check before relying on a lunar company or programme?
- 573 min · Subscribers
Risk Register
What could go wrong for the lunar economy between 2026 and 2035, how likely is it, and what would it do?
- 582 min · Subscribers
Signals to Watch and What Would Change Our View
Which events over the next 24–36 months will show whether the lunar economy is on track, and how would each change this study's conclusions?
Timeline - 592 min · Subscribers
Twenty Questions This Study Answers
What are the most common questions about the lunar economy, and what are the short answers?
- 603 min · Subscribers
Methodology and Sources
How was this study built, which sources does it rely on, and where are its limits?
- 612 min · Subscribers
Appendix A: Lunar Landing Attempts, 2013–2026
Which spacecraft have tried to land on the Moon since 2013, and how did they fare?
Split - 622 min · Subscribers
Appendix B: Glossary
What do the technical terms and acronyms in this study mean?
- 632 min · Subscribers
Appendix C: Model Reference Values
Which default inputs and reference cases do the five interactive models use, so that readers can reproduce the study's numbers?
The first 3 chapters of this and every report are open to everyone. Space access opens all 63, with the models and their Excel files.
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The thesis, against the live record
Research and contract activity on public registers, mapped to the bottlenecks this report names.
1,096
awards & contracts on record
1,063
organisations
$9.0bn
awarded (corrected)
171
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