Colonization of the Moon to reach the moon, to offer a hand . . . . The idea is to spread the costs, but also spread the wealth." In 2016, Johann-Dietrich Wörner, the Chief of ESA, proposed the International Moon Village as a non-governmental organization (NGO), and in November 2017, the Moon Village Association was created. This organization aims to promote international discussions to foster the implementation of a permanent human settlement near the lunar south pole. Exploration of the lunar surface by spacecraft began in 1959 with the Soviet Union's Luna program. Luna 1 missed the Moon, but Luna 2 made a hard
Moon landing in October 1963 that the USSR was "not at present planning flight by cosmonauts to the Moon," while insisting that the Soviets had not dropped out of the race. Only after another year would the USSR fully commit itself to a Moon-landing attempt, which ultimately failed. At the same time, Kennedy had suggested various joint programs, including a possible Moon landing by Soviet and U.S. astronauts and the development of better weather-monitoring satellites. Khrushchev, sensing an attempt by Kennedy to steal Russian space technology, rejected the idea: if the USSR went to the Moon, it would go alone. Sergey Korolev,