Beresheet – Israel’s Mission to the Moon – Part 1

SPACE IL PHOTO
SPACE IL PHOTO

SpaceX launches Israel’s Beresheet lunar rover to the Moon

In the beginning… it started as a contest. (More on that in a moment.)

Israel’s Beresheet mission to the moon is well underway and has captured the imagination of its home country and of enthusiasts around the world. If successful:

  • It will be the first privately built spacecraft to land on the moon.
  • It will be joining a select community of space agencies who have journeyed and landed on the moon.
  • And it will do so at the bargain basement price of US $100 million.

A lot has been written about Beresheet, but I have found so many more fascinating details that I would like to share with you about the mission and the people behind it.

 

The Story of SpaceIL

I highly recommend a New York Times feature article, How Israel’s Moon Lander Got to the Launchpad. And how is this for a marvellous lead: “It started in 2010 with a Facebook post. ‘Who wants to go to the moon?’ wrote Yariv Bash, a computer engineer. A couple of friends, Kfir Damari and Yonatan Winetraub responded, and the three met at a bar in Holon, a city south of Tel Aviv. At 30, Mr. Bash was the oldest. ‘As the alcohol levels in our blood increased, we became more determined,’ Mr. Winetraub recalled. They formed a nonprofit, SpaceIL, to undertake the task…”

The article explains how the original goal was to compete for a $20 million grand prize offered by Google to the first privately funded venture to put a spacecraft on the moon. Although none of the competitors were able to meet Google’s deadline, the Israeli team persevered on what the Times called “a long and winding, four million mile-long journey to reach a destination that is a quarter million miles away.”

 

SpaceIL – Beresheet’s Journey to the Moon

 

The Scientific Mission

Teams from Israel, France and the United States hope to gain an understanding of one of the mysteries of the moon when the spacecraft lands on April 11. Previous moon landings have gathered moon rocks and have discovered that they are magnetic. That is odd because the moon’s core does not generate a global magnetic field as does the earth’s. So Beresheet is carrying a magnetometer provided by Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science to measure the local magnetic field.

 

The Payload

Beresheet is carrying three discs containing hundreds of digital files including:

  • Israel’s Declaration of Independence and national anthem
  • The memories of a Holocaust survivor
  • Children’s drawings of space and the moon
  • a note from former president Shimon Peres containing a verse from the Book of Genesis. (Quite appropriate since Beresheet is the name of the first book of the Torah.)

 

SpaceIL – International launches

 

The Moon and the Jews

Beresheet is set to land on the moon almost fifty years after that “giant leap for mankind.” I was fascinated to learn that the original Apollo 11 moon landing inspired some Jewish leaders to reword a Jewish prayer that is recited every month.

The moon plays a huge role in Judaism and our prayers. Rosh Chodesh and the Jewish festivals are set to the phases of the moon. Shortly before the new moon is expected, a special prayer (the Birchat Hachodesh) is recited in synagogues. A few days later, the congregation gathers outside to deliver another prayer (the Kiddush Levana) as the moon begins to wax or grow.

After the 1969 moon landing, Shlomo Goren, who would later become the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel, took a close a look at the traditional wording of the prayer. It reads in part:

“As I dance before you and cannot touch you, so my enemies will not be able to touch me.”

Rabbi Goren suggested that since men had walked and touched the moon, the time was ripe to use a different version of the prayer:

“As I dance against you and do not touch you, so others, if they dance against me to harm me, they will not touch me.”

Dr. Gilbert Klapperman, president of the New York Board of Rabbis, added at the time: The accomplishment of the Apollo 11 astronauts “has put a new construction on the Psalmist’s observation that ‘the heavens are the heavens of the Lord; and the earth hath He given to the children of men,’ for now the moon, too, has become an extension of earth.” According to the siddurim I am familiar with, Rabbi Goren’s version didn’t meet with wide acceptance. But I was struck how they tried to keep in consonance with worldly – and extra-worldly – events.

Next time, Beresheet phones home, and how this project has brought special meaning for a SpaceIL co-founder whose grandfather survived the Holocaust.