ispace

On Wednesday, a Japanese company called ispace announced that it has two missions planned to the Moon within the next three years and that it has acquired ride-share launches on two Falcon 9 rockets to carry out those flights. The company’s founder, Takeshi Hakamada, also said he has a long-term vision to have a city on the Moon visited by 10,000 people a year by 2040.

If this all sounds a little too ambitious, well, welcome to the world of aerospace, which is always heavy on promotion and big ideas. And we like that. NASA didn’t land on the Moon because it was timid. However, we also feel compelled to bring at least a splash of realism to the conversation.