The Artemis II crew set a record Monday for the farthest distance humans have traveled from Earth, swinging around the moon’s far side as NASA and its partners try to turn big missions into something more lasting.
Not long after traveling 248,656 miles away from Earth—breaking the Apollo 13 mark from 1970—Artemis mission specialist Jeremy Hansen told reporters he and his crewmates “choose this moment to challenge this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long-lived.” It was a line that landed, mostly because it sounded less like celebration and more like pressure.
For NASA, that pressure is supposed to come with purpose. The space agency and its commercial partners are counting on Artemis to help shift the public’s imagination, and maybe even its appetite, toward a new era of exploration—one built on a thriving space economy. To do that, NASA is testing a strategy it’s already been trending toward: relying more on public-private partnerships. For Artemis II, that means pairing NASA with established contractors like Lockheed Martin and Boeing. For future missions, the partnership model is expected to broaden further to include SpaceX and Blue Origin, along with newcomers such as Firefly Aerospace, a Texas-based private company that successfully landed a spacecraft on the lunar surface in March 2025.
The industry math is a big part of the pitch. Where rocket launches used to feel like something only governments could afford, private companies have helped make launches more businesslike. Companies like Firefly are designing rovers and landers for NASA and other customers—tools that could eventually support a permanent lunar outpost. Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander landing was a real moment on the ground in Austin, with staff celebrating outside mission control as the descent played out. If you were there, you probably would’ve noticed the kind of ordinary sounds that show up when people wait for history—phones buzzing, radios crackling, the small commotion of people trying not to jinx the last minute.
Still, the lunar economy as a clean, guaranteed revenue stream is not here yet. Misryoum newsroom reported that the Artemis program, even as it signals the future, is bumping into a stubborn present-tense reality: private space has grown, but it isn’t as big or as profitable as some NASA officials once hoped. A 2021 analysis by PricewaterhouseCoopers put the potential value of the lunar economy around $170 billion over the next two decades. Experts say the gap between promise and profitability—right now, not enough money coming in—keeps the vision from cashing out.
And yet the momentum keeps building around one specific idea: a gradual moon base plan that NASA announced in late March. The approach is tied to returning humans to the lunar surface in 2028 with Artemis IV, with the landing spacecraft being built by private companies. “It felt like starting something new,” said Kevin Scholtes, a future systems architect at Firefly Aerospace, in an interview on Monday. “It felt like we were getting the tremendous privilege, with a lot of help from NASA, to start a new chapter in space exploration.” It’s the kind of statement that makes sense in a room full of engineers—but also exposes the long runway ahead.
There’s a reason many analysts keep reaching for comparisons, even if they’re not perfect ones. Misryoum editorial desk noted that the government paving the way for private profit has happened before—like the settlement of the American West, aided by friendly contracts with railroad companies. And in low Earth orbit, SpaceX and others helped slash launch costs by about 70% through reusable rockets and lighter payloads. But there’s a snag, too: most routine launches still funnel into a fairly narrow mission set, especially deploying communications satellites. “Now we’re incredibly dependent on” satellite communication, says Angel Abbud-Madrid, director of the Center for Space Resources at the Colorado School of Mines. If a broader space economy is coming—say, the kind that reaches “trillions of dollars”—he argues “you’re going to have to get more” revenue streams.
Mining the moon might be where those streams eventually come from. Misryoum analysis indicates the economic viability of cislunar operations—between Earth’s atmosphere and the lunar surface, and beyond—could be even more complicated than low Earth orbit. The moon is 100 times farther away, and as of now there is no clear profit to be found. But the resources are tempting: rare earth elements, helium-3, and especially water ice. Deposits at the lunar south pole, in
permanently shadowed craters, could—at least in theory—be processed into rocket propellant and oxygen for breathing. That’s the dream of turning the moon into a sort of “self-sustaining gas station” for deep-space missions. Still, it’s science heavy. Artemis II itself is part of that groundwork: during Monday’s roughly seven-hour lunar flyby, the crew photographed and cataloged features of the surface in detail, with 35 targets for 10 science objectives, including identifying potential future landing sites.
Several private companies are preparing for a helium-3 push, while others are focused on lunar infrastructure. But along with engineering comes the harder question: what are the rules? The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 says the moon cannot be taken over by any nation, but it doesn’t explicitly ban mining. The Artemis Accords—U.S.-led guidance signed by 61 nations—affirms that resource extraction in outer space is lawful if certain conditions are met. China and Russia, which are planning to build a permanent base together at the moon’s south pole, are not signatories to the Artemis Accords. Experts say that doesn’t automatically mean a turf war—still, “there’s going to have to be some conversation,” Abbud-Madrid said.
For now, Artemis II is heading home. The crew is scheduled to splash down off the coast of San Diego on Friday. And 2026 is shaping up to stay busy: three companies—in partnership with NASA—are scheduled to land scientific payloads on the lunar surface, including a second Blue Ghost mission by Firefly Aerospace. Scholtes called the competition among these companies “a friendly rivalry,” adding that they “compete over the same contracts” and missions—yet are ultimately in the same industry. “All ships are going to rise and sink with the tide,” he said, which is encouraging… or maybe it’s just the most honest way to describe how quickly this moon economy could either bloom or stall.
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