I find it really disconcerting to see critical comments of Israel and the US aid to Israel in the comment section that have no basis in fact. Guess that is life in Trump’s America - a post-truth world where people make up facts to suit their prejudices.
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Great job Israel! Start Up Nation shows the world what can be accomplished if you put your mind to it.
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Israel launches a moon lander and, surprise, the Israel-haters fill the comment section with derision.
The "money" Israel receives from the USA is not a gift. It has many stipulations.
For one, what is provided is American made military products like aircraft. This all stays in the US and the pockets of American workers. There is no actual money sent over, regardless of what the left claims. They are the first to denounce Israel while remaining silent about the crimes of its neighbors.
Israel, unlike the other lands in its region, is not only the only democracy there but is our only true friend.
It also is the only Jewish state in the world, the historical home of the Jewish people who were kicked out by the Romans in 70AD.
According to the Pew Research Center in 2010, there were 50 Muslim-majority countries.
One Jewish one.
We have been praying three times a day that we would return to the land from which we were exiled 2,000 years ago.
Well, we have.
Get used to it.
We aren't going anywhere.
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There is no way that Israel should be allowed to own ballistic missiles.
Didn’t India launch something on the moon in 2009? Article states only China, USA, and Soviet Union
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Hopefully many more spacecraft will be launched by Israel.
Realistically, I think most space exploration for some time will be done by robots until easy travel through worm holes is available.
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You do realize that we feed them 3-4 billion a year?
Someone explain 'why' to me -.
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@rosa
Why do we give money to Egypt,Afghanistan, Jordan,Iraq and Israel and a host of other lands?
Well, apparently, you are only upset about Israel.
How revealing.
Your tax dollars are well spent if sent to Israel.
The rest, I agree, is a total waste.
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@rosa1
1) It's called geo-politics. Or would you rather the USA put all its eggs into baskets like Egypt and Syria? For all its warts, Israel is the only stable democracy in the region.
2) It's called the military-industrial complex. The monies the USA gives to Israel ain't a blank check, they have to be spent on buying weapons from American firms.
3) I'm sure you're not anti-Semitic much, making such a comment on an article like this in the Science section.
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This is refreshing news from Israel. It also reminds the rest of the free world that citizen gumption and innovation is the lifeblood of a healthy productive and successful economy.
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So a bunch of Israeli engineers got drunk one night a decided to send a time capsule to the moon? I have to say the Mars 2020 Rover is a bit more inspiring. We just had a JPL engineer give a talk about the new mission. The speaker's presentation had a better back story from a STEM perspective. This sounds like your old roommate's kickerstarter. The band finally got a tour bus... for the children of course.
This moon lander, even before a successful landing, is a tremendous achievement coming from a private company in such a small country. It does bring to mind a question though. Are companies such as this, and other commercial entities devoted to space covered by the international treaty on space activities?
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this is the type of hopeful news i like to hear from Israel. great accomplishment
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As a Jew and a lover of science I feel very proud and uplifted to read this article. However, there is another front page article in today's New York Times about Netanyahu's cozying up to racist political parties in his efforts to hold onto power. I suppose one could chalk this apparent contradiction up to realpolitik, but is strikingly sad that a small and industrious country like Israel can put a lunar module on the moon yet has to grovel with racist parties for its leader to stay in power. Surely they can do better than that!
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This is really a beautiful article. It made me tear a little.
I've always been very enthusiast about space exploration. Knowing that this project was achieved this way and not another is great. We should be going back to space, but slowly, and together, in a philanthropic way ; out of curiosity, and to fulfill the need of learning and exploring that reside in mankind.
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The headline could have been:
Israel Lands On The Moon, While Palestinians Dig Tunnels.
Or, if you prefer:
Israel Lands On The Moon, While Trump Builds Wall.
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@A. Stanton
The Palestinian terrorists, Hamas and the Lebanese Iranian proxies, Hezbollah, are the only ones building tunnels.
But maybe that is not what you wanted to highlight.
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A great achievement for Israel and some exciting firsts. Privatization makes a lot of sense, nice coup for Elon Musk as well.
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How about the world, including Israel, go to the Israeli occupied Palestinian territories, and improving the conditions of the people there. Those people need the help more than anybody does on the moon.
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@Steve C You probably don't know this but the west bank was Jordanian territory until 1988. They unilaterally departed from the people you call 'Palestinians'. So let Jordan and the Arab world take care of them.
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@Steve C
How about the "people there" improving the conditions for themselves?
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I can not see any usefulness for this mission whatsoever other than a "publicity/pride" event for Israel. I guess that is a good enough reason. Don't see how it advances space exploration or moon knowledge at all. It's nice story for some wealthy people like Adelson, I suppose.
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I have to wonder if they ever said the name of that probe out loud.
If you read the Bible in Hebrew out loud you'll pronounce it. It means "In the beginning", and it's the name of the first book of the Bible in Hebrew.
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I wonder if @Robert Holmen is equally amused by bed sheets.
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@Ziyal
Yes, sometimes people who only speak "American" think that the rest of the world thinks like them, too.
Things seem different in Dallas than the rest of this country.
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So proud of Israel. But only saw one woman pictured and not thrilled that Adelson will get credit for this. Wish this didn’t have to be complicated but in this day and age, why is no effort to include women? Not nitpicking here. The bold and brash stereotype of Israelis doesn’t dazzle me the same way anymore. It makes me sad because I so wanted to forward this great story. But when I saw the pictures of all men and just one woman, I felt deflated. However, I will follow this story and hope The Times keeps up,with it. I first learned about this from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
It’s very exciting!
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@Susan Gloria There is a differently-abled person.
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We are supposed to believe that they accomplished this for $100 million? There must be an equal amount of American technology and government support provided at no cost. As is all too often the case, Israel succeeds at some thing by spending our money while we remain a country providing Third World services to its own citizens. The total amount of money flowing from our wallets to Washington and on to Tel Aviv would shock American voters.
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Do we really want everyone getting into space? Are we sure that private ventures in space travel are in the interest of science and human kind? Call me traditional, but there’s something about non-NASA projects that makes me queasy.
#CarsInSpace
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How about a Google Prize for engineering innovations to mitigate carbon dioxide buildup in the atmosphere?
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Innovation in science needs to be applauded: Two private companies, one from Israel and one from the US to inspire young people to dream and to successfully execute!
I love that one of the participants is differently abled.
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Now, these people understand these words of the late President Kennedy:
"We choose to go to the moon.
We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."
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@David Gregory We choose to go to the moon, while our country receives foreign aid from a country where the tax payers own program can no longer afford to go.
Sorry I'm petty.
Kudos to the SpaceIL team for the imagination and persistence to make this a reality.
But as exciting as it is to see a privately funded Moon probe launch on a private rocket, it is also a reminder of how far the U.S. has drifted from its potential. Instead of daring space launches or bold plans to land human explorers on Mars, we're talking about building the Wall. Instead of conquering disease, we're promoting anti-vaxxers to serious posts in D.C. And instead of can-do action on global warming, we're debating whether it is real as the globe rushes toward a tipping point.
The U.S. has let naysayers in the G.O.P. gut America's visionary leadership for too long. Trump is the just the most recent and worst phase of that descent. The time has come to marginalize G.O.P. radicalism and restore America's ability to meet humanity's biggest challenges including space exploration once again.
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what an inspiring story what an accomplishment for a group of young people and what an amazing solidarity and support for the right idea with no questions asked. I take my hat off to everyone involved and sponsored. Well done already!
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Interesting to see the critical posts. Perhaps they should think about criticizing things like the billions wasted on drugs, guns, gambling, soda and other things that are harmful rather than a hundred million to achieve something incredible that will educate and inspire. I also love that the founder hasn’t let his physical disability hold him back!
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@Mike K In order to do a reasonable comparative analysis you would have to find a US foreign aid recipient country that is about the size of New Jersey with a population the size of New York CITY whose citizens enjoy full universal health care, virtually free college tuition, reasonable and guaranteed retirement income starting at about 61 for women and about 65 for men and whose average income is close to $60,000 per year. And who receive over 4 Billion US Taxpayer dollars every year. You’ll have to look at foreign aid recipients starting at #2 because Israel is our #1 foreign aid recipient.
The real question becomes why are our elected “representatives” fine with the citizens of our #1 foreign aid recipient having universal health care from cradle to grave, virtually free college education, a good retirement income and a living wage but us when we’re the ones footing the bill with our Own tax dollars on both counts?
Could this private company located in Israel have done this without massive infusions of US Taxpayer support money? Did these scientists and engineers have virtually free college education without crushing student loans to repay? And how much impact does US foreign aid support enable Israeli citizens to have these social safety net benefits? Just some things to ponder.
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@American girl
Pure ignorance:
1) Israel receives no money from the US - she received military equipment - mostly aircraft. The "money" you are so concerned about stays in the US and goes into the pockets of defense contractors and defense workers in the US.
The cost of the US military presence in places like Korea, Germany, and Japan is many times greater, and actually takes money out of the US.
2) Health care in Israel isn't free - Israelis are charged a witholding tax from their paychecks to cover the cost of basic care. About 75% of Israelis also purchase additional coverage, as they deem the basic package to be insuffficient.
2) College tuition isn't free. It's similar to what in state tuition is for students attending a public university in their own state.
3) Retirement age is 62, and 67 in Israel - not as you quoted. And the reasonable and guaranteed retirement income you seem to think exists here is a small amount that leaves the elderly living in poverty if they have no other income. The basic amount for a retired couple is about $600 a month. For a single person it is about $400 a month.
4) The median salary in Israel is about $2100 a month, median family income is about $3300. GDP per capita is about $40k, not $60k.
When you want to make criticisms, maybe you should know what you are talking about.
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74% of the US annual aid to Israel must be spent on the purchases of US-made products.
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@American girl It's American money invested in American companies to keep them out of bankruptcy.
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This is thrilling! And yet another success for Israel’s extraordinary tech sector.
I noticed the name of one of the project leaders, so I went on Facebook to found out more about his background and achievements. You can imagine my surprise when Facebook said we have two mutual friends — my Israeli nephew and niece!
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After literally decades of talk from American companies and entrepreneurs of privately funded lunar exploration, here comes a privately funded Israeli group to actually go ahead and try it.
On a privately funded private American company's rocket.
Kudos all around, and here's hoping for a successful venture.
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"Within a few days of its landing, Beresheet is expected to succumb to the heat of lunar noon, because the spacecraft isn’t equipped with many redundant backup systems that are required on most spacecraft. Then, its mission will end."
Perhaps someone can tell me what the word "redundant" means in this sentence? It sounds a lot closer to "absolutely vital" than I'm accustomed to.
Does this work in medicine too? "The patient is expected to die in a few days, because he's not equipped with a redundant lung, brain hemisphere, and heart ventricle like most humans - just has the necessary one of each."
Anyway, marvelous accomplishment. 100M for a moonshot without government resources is a remarkable achievement.
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@Alex
It means that usually such spacecraft have cooling systems and one or two backup systems for everything - to make sure they can keep functioning.
The Israeli mission was done on the cheap - so they left most of that out. The main scientific goal of the mission is to measure the magnetic fields on the moon. Much of that will be done even before the craft lands on the surface of the moon
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Since the comments will inevitably focus on U.S. aid to Israel, just a reminder of how it works.
Essentially all U.S. aid to Israel is military aid and it is subject to a requirement to use the aid to buy U.S. made weapons systems.
So a good way to look at it is the U.S. buys weapons from U.S. manufacturers and gives them to Israel for free. This of course benefits Israel fiscally, and benefits the U.S. in the sense that an important regional ally maintains a military edge, but the third key interest group that is often ignored is the American defense industry—Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed, etc.
And another point to keep in mind is that an alternative security arrangement with Israel could look more like what the U.S. does for NATO generally, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, etc. in which we base our own military assets in the countries subject to our security umbrella. This is undoubtedly a form of military aid that is quite analogous to the aid to Israel. The main difference is Israel has more autonomy in procuring and fielding the U.S. made systems. But you probably don’t see this form of military aid to Germany brought up when someone says “Mercedes Benz makes a nice car”.
Wonder why.
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@Mmm Good Post!. I thought the moderators would stop the haters, but I see some got through.
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@Mmm
There's another big, big difference between Israel and other US allies such as Germany, South Korea and the Baltics that writers here are overlooking.
No US soldiers on the ground in Israel. None, except for a listening post in the Negev meant to serve American, not Israeli priorities. Israel fights its own battles, putting its own sons' lives, not Americans', on the line.
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What an absolutely delightful story! These days we so rarely seem to get cheerful and uplifting stories and this one is certainly both of those!
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It's nice to see what they are doing with the $38 billion we gave them. This and funding their universal healthcare system.
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Try paying attention! The "aid" is giving them money to buy US weapons and defense products. American companies and their workers are the ones who are benefitting. None of the money goes to health programs.
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@FXQ
I assumed you missed the several references to the venture being privately financed.
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@FXQ
Again, the US doesn't give Israel $38 billion - the money stays in the US and goes into the pockets of American citizens. Israel basically gets aircraft.
The health care in Israel is funded by a tax paid by every
Israeli, and most Israelis supplement it with additional health insurance paid for out of pocket.
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"The SpaceIL founders point out that this is still much cheaper and smaller than what a space agency like NASA would build."
Maybe I'm reading too much smugness into this, but they act like this is some marvel of the private sector that government could never accomplish. But their lander (not rover like planned) is only expected to last "a few days" and came in at 10x their original projected cost (that they convinced some billionaire to give them), not even counting the volunteer work that went into it. Contrast that with Opportunity, a rover which landed on Mars and was designed to last 90 days and instead functioned for over 14 years. To launch and operate Opportunity as well as its twin rover Spirit for the initial 90 days mission upon landing cost $800 million, only eight times what these guys spent on one moon non-rover that lasts a few days.
All that being said, landing something on another object besides Earth is impressive and cool and congratulations is in order, presuming it all goes well at least.
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@Jason
See how well the government projects would have done without billions in tax dollars to fall back on. Then compare apples with oranges.
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Well done ! Anyone who gets to space to do any kind of exploration or research has my full support !
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This looks like an amazing project and I am so proud of Israel!
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This is a country that so badly needs to look inward, than to the moon.
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@Ed Watters I can think of at least one other country that needs to do that more so.
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why not both?
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@Ed Watters they owe nobody nothing.
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If they can afford this, perhaps they can afford to get by with less foreign aid from the US? Just asking.
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@asg21
According to the article this is a private organization not a governmental organization.
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This is a private company, not a governmental agency.
And when was the last time- you questioned the achievements of other foreign governments they get Aid from US? Should I list them for you.
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@asg21 The foreign aid to Israel goes directly to US weapons companies. These are the guys who fund lawmakers and provide jobs for their constituents. The article clearly explains how this project was funded.
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