Commercial Demand Beyond NASA
Who besides governments will pay for anything on or around the Moon, and how much?
Chapter summary
Not many, yet.
Key takeaways
- 1
Non-government lunar demand in 2026 is a few tens of millions of dollars a year: small payloads from universities and companies, memorial and media payloads, technology demonstrations by firms such as Nokia, and a handful of purchase agreements for helium-3.
- 2
The only private demand with a plausible path to hundreds of millions a year by the 2030s is helium-3 for quantum computing (Chapter 32), followed by services sold to agencies (power, communications, mobility) that companies own and operate.
- 3
Lunar tourism, mining for Earth markets other than helium-3, and lunar manufacturing for Earth remain speculative.
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Science Demand: What Scientists Want from the Moon
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