Japan Announces Plans to Land on The Moon by 2020

We startup founders and investors like to talk about “moonshots”. It points out startups that have huge dreams, those that are solving hard problems, and those that will actually change the world if they succeed.

Usually, the term moonshot is used metaphorically, but today I’d like to introduce you to a literal moonshot. Takeshi Hakamada, founder and CEO of ispace, plans on landing commercial payloads on the moon in the next two years.

Ispace is in the process of developing lunar landers and lunar rovers, and they plan on using the increasingly inexpensive commercial launch companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin to send them to the moon.

Ispace has secured a partnership with Japan’s space agency, and they have attracted more than $90 million in investment.

It’s a great conversation and I think you’ll really enjoy it.

Show Notes

Why Japan's space program is being privatized How a lunar lander can be commercially viable by 2020 An overview of ispace's first ten lunar missions How much it costs to put one kilogram on the moon What's worth mining on the moon What a lunar economy could look like Why lunar advertising is a possibility

Links from the Founder

Check out ispace Connect with Takeshi on LinkedIn

[shareaholic app="share_buttons" id="7994466"] Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. “Boys, be ambitious. Be ambitious not for money or selfish aggrandizement, not for that evanescent thing which men call fame. Be ambitious for the attainment of all that a man ought to be.” That was a parting advice given in 1867 by William S. Clark to the students of what would become Hokkaido University. While Clark is not widely known in his home country of the United States, both he and the phrase “Boys, be ambitious” are legendary here in Japan.

And yet so few Japanese boys or girls, for that matter, really are ambitious, at least in the way that Clark intended it. Of course, many of Japan’s most ambitious boys are girls are the very ones out there starting startups, and today, I’d like to introduce you to the most ambitious Japanese startup in existence.

They are a literal moonshot company and they’ve just raised over $90 million to pursue that dream. Takeshi Hakamada, founder and CEO of ispace plans on landing commercial payloads on the moon in the next two years.

Now, ispace is not making rockets like SpaceX or Blue Origin, they're creating lunar landers and lunar rovers, and they are making plans for a commercially viable lunar economy. I'll let Takeshi tell you all about it.

Oh, but before I do, you should know about the Google Lunar X Prize. This was a global $25 million competition sponsored by Google and open to any companies that could land a rover on the moon and send data back to Earth. Now, no one ended up winning the main prize but Takeshi’s Hakuto project was one of the five companies from around the world that won an intermediate milestone prize.

But you know, Takeshi tells that story much better than I can, so let's get right to the interview.

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[Interview]

Tim: So we're sitting here with Takeshi Hakamada of ispace who is going to commercialize the moon with exploration mining and eventually tourism, so thanks for sitting down with me.

Takeshi: Thank you for having interview with me today.

Tim: I really appreciate this and I love big dreams, and I think that no company in Japan has bigger dreams than ispace.

Takeshi: Really?

Tim: Yeah. Well, I mean, you've recently raised $90 million for a literal moonshot. Can you explain what you're planning on doing?

Takeshi: We are trying to provide a commercial transportation service to the moon in the next few years. Starting from that service, we want to get into the mining business in space and then the human beings living in space. Our company vision is expand the planet, expand the future. We want to create a world where human being can live in space.

Tim: So when you talk about mining on the moon, what is there to mine?

Takeshi: There is many of the opportunity for the mining business on the moon. There also in space, however, the first target is water, h2o is going to be split into Hydrogen and Oxygen, and then it become appropriate for spacecraft with rocket satellite, and then if we can create a gas station in space, we can transform the space transportation system.

Tim: Let's dive deep into the lunar economics in a bit, but just so our listeners understand how ambitious your goals are, in the next two years, you plan on two mission: one to send a lunar orbiter and a second mission to actually soft land and deploy a lunar rover on the moon.

Takeshi: Yes.

Tim: 2020 is two years away. Do you feel confident you'll be able to do that?

Takeshi: Yes. First of all, we have already experienced. We have already developed a lunar rover already, and then we've already started the lunar lander development one year ago. We have already the background to accomplish our development. However, even the – we have one year already experience for the lunar lander development, three years is still a short time, especially in space industry.

Tim: Yeah, yeah.

Takeshi: Usually, the space program will take about five years to 10 years, so the three years is very, very aggressive, a short time. However, there's a technology already that has many of the components available so the only thing we have to do is design the system properly and then assemble the component.

Tim: Okay, and after the second mission which is scheduled to be a lunar lander, then you guys get really aggressive and you're planning seven or eight missions over the next year to basically construct an infrastructure, right?

Takeshi: Yeah, our ultimate goal is to construct the mining plant on the moon but the first few years, our focus is to transport a small craft. Our transportation capability is just a 30-kilogram payload, so compared to the governmental missions, they transport more than 100 kilograms or more than that at one time. Our service is just to bring 30 kilograms. We are going to leave a small sized payload in many times.

Tim: And you think over that time, missions three to nine, those payloads will mostly be autonomous robots to build this infrastructure?

Takeshi: We think that past few years, also the payload will be a scientific payload, like sensors or the exploration goggles, things like that, and then also, we can provide opportunity for the space agencies to the most right technology to building something on the moon.

Tim: Well, listen, before we talk about that in detail, let's step back a bit and talk about you. This has been kind of a dream of yours for a long time because even before ispace and the Lunar X prize, you started a company called White Label Space back in 2010, was it?

Takeshi: Yes.

Tim: Can you tell us a bit about White Label Space, what was that about?

Takeshi: White Label Space [is the team entered for Lunar X prize. White Label Space itself was founded in Europe in 2008 when people worked for European space agencies and then they got together to create the team for Lunar X prize. They are start planning to develop lunar lander by themselves. However, there's no person who can develop lunar rover for the mission, and then while the person knows about Professor Yoshida, he kind of decided interested in the contribution to that team and then I also had a contact from the team to support Japanese activity and also raise some of the funds from Japan.

Tim: Oh, I see, so your involvement was sort of the Japanese branch of that organization?

Takeshi: Yes.

Tim: When you started the Hakuto project, that broke off from White Label Space or why did you rebrand it?

Takeshi: So we started actually at the activity in Japan as White Label Space in 2010. However, almost end of the 2012, White Label Space unfortunately decided to stop the activity in Europe. The major reason is financial situation. They couldn’t raise enough money to continue.

Tim: Both these organizations were striving to compete in the Google Lunar X Prize. How much money is required to create a lunar lander like this?

Takeshi: At the time of White Label Space, basic plan is to raise about $50 million and then develop lander and then purchase launch service. The entire mission cost me a share about $50 million.

Tim: The Hakuto project just had this huge outpouring of support in Japan, both from individuals who are like crowd funding and corporate sponsors as well. That must have felt really rewarding after working on it for so long.

Takeshi: From the beginning, plan to raise funds is to utilize the sponsorship or to collect more money from a large number of people. However, it's very, very difficult at the beginning. Anyway, we kept doing and then we started to show our progress, and then many of the people start interested in our challenge. But the most important concept is challenge. When the other people start understanding the core of the challenge, we started get more support.

Tim: So most of the support come after you won the intermediate challenge?

Takeshi: Yes.

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Tim: That’s always the way it is though, isn't it?

Takeshi: Yes. So the Lunar X Prize announced the milestone prizes in 2014 and then we are awarded as one with the milestone prize winner. We proved our technology to that milestone prizes, so that kind of the event is very, very important, the people recognize which team has bigger reliable technologies.

Tim: Well, no, I can understand. It really,