Moon Shot - Capitalist Private Craft Falls On Side Helplessly

The first privately-owned mission to the surface of the Moon ended prematurely Tuesday as a result of a botched landing that has resulted on the spacecraft ending up lying on its side, unable to use its solar panels to recharge its batteries, and with several antennae pointing in the wrong direction. The lander, named Odysseus, continued collecting data until power failed.

Much is being made in the corporate media about the fact that this is the first-ever Moon landing with a profit-making private corporation in control. The New York Times gushed that that the landing would “inaugurate a more revolutionary era” of more “economical” spaceflight. The Washington Post called it “a significant step toward NASA’s plan to eventually return astronauts” to the Moon. The Wall Street Journal asserted that the landing was a “milestone” for the space industry.

And NASA Administrator Bill Nelson set the tone for the nationalism and jingoism surrounding the event. “Today for the first time in the history of humanity, a commercial company—an American company—launched and led the voyage up there.”