CER 2026 Essay Contest 2nd Place: Why Humanity Needs to Keep Shooting for the Moon

In an era where AI can diagnose patients in seconds and NASA's Artemis II carried astronauts around the Moon for the first time since 1972, it has become difficult to classify any scientific initiative as a true "moonshot." The milestones previously considered impossible have become commonplace, and yet that progress did not happen in a vacuum. Dozens of agencies and nations continue investing billions into projects with uncertain timelines and outcomes that may not materialize for decades. This paper argues that such investments remain not only economically justified but necessary. Despite their risks, these research programs bring cascading benefits, generate knowledge that private markets cannot produce independently, and represent the kind of civilizational risk-taking that has historically defined humanity’s greatest advances. 

To understand why moonshot programs are chronically underfunded relative to their social value, it helps to name the mechanism responsible. Economist Iconio Garrì of Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore refers to it as political short-termism: the systematic tendency of elected officials to prioritize projects with short-term visible payoffs over investments whose returns accumulate over decades (Garrì). A senator up for reelection in two years has little incentive to sponsor a project whose results may not appear until the next generation. Political scientist James Q. Wilson calls this "client politics," in which powerful lobbying efforts from organizations and companies directly alter the priorities of Congressional actors for or against specific projects (Wilson). The result is a structural bias in democratic budgeting against research purely because of the short-term opportunity cost. 

Since its peak during the Apollo program era, federal R&D funding has fallen from 1.86% of GDP in 1964 to just 0.63% today. If federal funding continued at the same rate, the US would be contributing approximately $543 billion dollars annually as opposed to the $148 billion actually utilized. Simultaneously, the private sector, which now funds 75% of all domestic research, directs the overwhelming majority of that toward near-term commercial development rather than basic science (NSF NCSES, 2025). The result is a structural gap: the exploratory, long-horizon research that could produce the next internet or the next vaccine has no natural private funder.

The Opportunity Cost Objection and Why It Falls Short 

The most common critique of moonshot programs is the opportunity cost argument: that by committing resources to one speculative project, society forfeits the potential gains that could

have arisen from dozens of smaller projects with more predictable returns. This argument rests on a flawed premise: it treats moonshot projects as if their only output is the headline goal. In reality, these projects often generate a continuous stream of innovations that aids future projects. Shinya Yamanaka's Nobel Prize–winning discovery that ordinary adult cells could be reprogrammed into stem cells is a primary example: it was fundamental cell biology with no stated medical target (Takahashi and Yamanaka), yet that same platform is now being used to grow insulin-producing beta cells and transplant them into patients with type 1 diabetes. This resulted in a 2024 success in the treatment of a type 1 diabetes patient by a Peking University team, and within two and a half months their patient had stopped insulin injections entirely (Wang et al.). The beauty of knowledge is that its benefits are not confined to those who fund it. When society invests into foundational research, the negative externality is borne broadly: delayed treatments, unrealized technologies, and compounding gaps in scientific capacity that no private actor has the incentive to close. This is the market failure which justifies public investment in research.

Orphan Drugs: A Case Study in Incremental Returns 

Rare disease research offers a concrete illustration of how moonshot-style investment produces value beyond its primary target. The FDA defines orphan diseases as those affecting less than 200,000 people in the U.S. (FDA). Nearly 80% of rare diseases are genetic in origin, and because they are often terminal or chronically debilitating, treating them is an exigent issue, yet pharmaceutical companies historically were hesitant as they saw no reasonable expectation that sales would reimburse development costs (Gürkan and Satkin). Prior to the Orphan Drug Act of 1983, only around ten drugs existed to treat thousands of known rare conditions; the private sector, operating on profitability alone, had no incentive to invest.

Government intervention changed that. Over the forty years following the Orphan Drug Act, 6,340 orphan drug designations were granted, covering drug development for 1,079 distinct rare diseases. More importantly, that research generated value far beyond its intended goals. Drug repurposing is a prime example. Rare disease research produces compounds and biological insights that are redirected to treat both related rare conditions and more common diseases across the medical industry. The gene therapy platforms refined in rare disease trials now prop up some of the most promising cancer and cardiovascular treatments. This is precisely what the opportunity cost argument misses: secondary impacts of moonshot research outweigh the cost of the primary risk taken. 

Bold Bets and the Arc of Innovation 

Furthermore, our most consequential advances have consistently required a willingness to take on risks that no private actor would. The Manhattan Project is the defining example. Devised under enormous uncertainty and executed in three years, it demanded breakthroughs across nuclear physics, materials science, and computation. The collective effort gave rise to what would become today's national laboratory system. The Monte Carlo simulation method, first invented during the Manhattan Project to model particle behavior, was later applied to genetics research, particle physics, and eventually the statistical modeling that outlines modern AI and financial risk systems. None of this was approved beforehand. All of it happened along the way. 

The name "moonshot" is instructive: it doesn't just describe the ambition of seeking out something deemed impossible. Rather, it defines the peculiar logic of attempting something unreachable and finding, in the process, that the attempt itself rewires what is possible. 

Conclusion 

Although returning to the moon is no longer the groundbreaking achievement that it once was, the significance of "moonshot" projects still holds its weight in gold. History shows that the attempt itself is often where the most valuable science lives, and the civilizations willing to make that attempt are the ones that define what comes next.

References:

Garrì, Iconio. "Political Short-Termism: A Possible Explanation." Public Choice, vol. 145, no. 1–2, 2010, pp. 197–211. Springer, doi:10.1007/s11127-009-9561-5. 

Gürkan, Hakan, and Nihan Bilge Satkin. "The Importance of Genetic Diagnosis in Rare Diseases." Balkan Medical Journal, vol. 42, 2025. PubMed Central, 

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11881545/. 

National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. Science and Engineering Indicators 2025. NSF, 2025, ncses.nsf.gov/indicators. 

Takahashi, Kazutoshi, and Shinya Yamanaka. "Induction of Pluripotent Stem Cells from Mouse Embryonic and Adult Fibroblast Cultures by Defined Factors." Cell, vol. 126, no. 4, 25 Aug. 2006, pp. 663–676, doi:10.1016/j.cell.2006.07.024. 

United States, Food and Drug Administration. "Rare Diseases at FDA." U.S. Food and Drug Administration, www.fda.gov/patients/rare-diseases-fda. 

Wang, Shusen, et al. "Transplantation of Chemically Induced Pluripotent Stem-Cell-Derived Islets under Abdominal Anterior Rectus Sheath in a Type 1 Diabetes Patient." Cell, vol. 187, no. 22, 24 Oct. 2024, pp. 6152–6164, doi:10.1016/j.cell.2024.09.004. 

Wilson, James Q. The Politics of Regulation. Basic Books, 1980.