They want moon landings to be a commercial reality — and that’s just the start

Takeshi Hakamada, founder and CEO of Ispace / Photo credit: Ispace

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This article is part of Tech in Asia’s partnership with Disrupting Japan where we publish the revised transcripts from the show’s podcast interviews with Japanese entrepreneurs. This is heavily revised from the original transcripts. For the full interview, go here.

nBoys, be ambitious.n

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 US, both he and his advice are legendary here in Japan. Yet, very few Japanese boys or girls are ambitious.

Of course, many of Japan’s most ambitious people are the very ones starting startups out there. With that, I’d like to introduce you to one ambitious Japanese startup. They are literally a moonshot company, raising over US$90 million to pursue their dream.

Takeshi Hakamada, founder and CEO of Ispace, plans on landing commercial payloads on the moon in the next two years. The company is not making rockets like SpaceX or Blue Origin but lunar landers and rovers. Hakamada’s project, Hakuto, was recognized at the Google Lunar X Prize, a US$25 million global competition.

Here’s our conversation.

nCan you explain your plans with Ispace?n

We are trying to provide a commercial transportation service to the moon in the next few years. From there, we want to get into the mining business in space. Our vision is to expand the planet and the future. We want to create a world where human beings can live in space.

nIn the next two years, you plan on doing two missions: to send a lunar orbiter and to soft land and deploy a lunar rover on the moon. Do you feel confident that you’ll be able to do these in a short time?n

Yes. First of all, we are already experienced. We have developed a lunar rover already and started the lunar lander development one year ago.

However, three years is still a short time, especially in the space industry. Usually, the space program will take about five to 10 years. But there’s already available technology that provides many of the components that we need, so the only thing we have to do is design the system properly and assemble the components.

Our ultimate goal is to construct the mining plant on the moon. But in the first few years, our focus is to transport a small craft. Our transportation capability is just a 30-kilogram payload vs the 100-kilogram capacity of government-backed missions.

nTell us about your team.n

We’re about 45 or 50, and there’s a small team based in Luxembourg. We knew that the Luxembourg government is also interested in the space mining business, so we contacted them. We had an agreement, then we set up an office and started hiring people there.

nSoft landing on the moon is extremely expensive. Can private companies do it?n

So far, the government has invested a lot of money for lunar landing. And over time, things have become more advanced, bringing down the costs.

In our case, a 30-kilogram payload would cost several million dollars per kilogram. That’s five or 10 times cheaper than government missions.

nWill the economics work?n

At this moment, the transportation cost is still expensive. So, it’s still unrealistic to bring something back from the moon to the earth and vice versa.

The mining business would help us identify the resources available on the moon to reduce the cost of space development. The goals of mining is to find water and be able to break it down to hydrogen and oxygen, find materials to build the infrastructure, be able to prepare a gas station, and figure out energy generation.

So, my major focus now is how to create economy in space—how to circulate money, etc.

nWhat is the biggest challenge in completing the missions?n

For the short term, it’s the schedule. Technology is available, so what we just have to do is keep up with the set timeline.

For the long term, it’s the economical incentive for people to live in space.

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I told you these boys are ambitious, didn’t I? I think it’s great that Ispace raised over US$90 million to pursue their vision. But I have to admit that I was a little disappointed to learn that this outpouring of financial and promotional support came only after their achievement was validated by Google.

Japanese investors and the society in general tend to overlook true innovation in Japan and overvalue what is being done overseas. I think this attitude is one of the things that’s holding back the innovation in the country at all levels.

So, is Ispace’s plan to land a rover on the moon in the next two years practical? No, of course. And missions of that scale are never practical. But is it possible? Well, I don’t know. For now, all I can do is put it in the “I want to believe” category and wish them all the best of luck.

However, when we look at Ispace as a startup, it has one glaring challenge, and it’s one that I see founders make all the time. The problem is, they don’t really know their customer or understand the problem they’re solving. They’ve not yet been able to define the value that they are creating.

Even if Ispace managed to solve these formidable engineering challenges, there’s not a large group of potential customers—private or government—who will be willing to pay a few million dollars per kilogram to place a payload on the moon.

To be fair, Hakamada and his company are aware of this problem. They have a few years to figure it out, and their current funds are enough to pay for the first two missions. For now, that’s the effort everyone is watching.

Correction (September 19, 11:25 am): The original photo was replaced to correctly identify Takeshi Hakamada.