Hello Reader,

Two weeks of real momentum: a trip to Brazil for an industry conference, five new projects funded, community rewards paid out, and a leadership election that will bring MoonDAO to its full three-seat Executive structure for the first time.

Here's what's new at MoonDAO, and how YOU can get involved.

Rio Innovation Week

MoonDAO returned to Rio de Janeiro for the 2nd Space Industry Workshop, after an invitation by the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB). Founder Pablo Moncada-Larrotiz spoke on a panel about the lunar economy and gave a first look at MoonDAO's new lunar simulation work and prize models.

Beyond the stage, the team held meetups with local Citizens and held strategic meetings with organizations building at the frontier of the industry, including Varda, ESA, Viasat, Spire, AEB, NOR Space Intelligence, and many more. Latin America's aerospace sector is accelerating, and Brazil is leading the way. Muito obrigado (thank you very much) to AEB for the invitation, and to everyone who helped organize the workshop.

We expect to be back in Brazil again...

🚀 Watch the Project Showcase

Five new projects just cleared community vote and were funded by MoonDAO:

• Human-Rated DAO Vacuum Chamber (Trent Tresch) — new components for UNM's human-rated altitude chamber, opened up for community lunar habitation testing.
• Interactive NASA Lunar Base Model (Aleksa Djurdjevic) — turning NASA's Moon to Mars and Artemis architecture into open, testable mission plans.
• Mission Cosmic Colombia (Giovanna Ramirez) — a 7-day STEAM program and Solidarity Space Kits reaching underserved communities and young patients across Colombia.
• FUTURA: Rover Mission Control (Sky Lavergne) — an open framework for how robots assess lunar terrain before we build on it.
• LUZINHA: Satellite Payload & Education (Florence Pauline) — a real orbital radiation payload paired with a cartoon space scout so students can follow live data.

The team behind each new project presented live at this week's Demo Day, alongside updates from five ongoing projects already underway. That's 10 active MoonDAO projects running in parallel right now, spanning habitat testing, rover autonomy, satellite payloads, and space education, on multiple continents. If you've ever wanted a way into a real space project, this is a good place to start.

​▶ Watch the Project Showcase & Demo Day recording​

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🪐 236 Citizens and Counting

Our network keeps growing! Recent additions include a Berlin-based founder building an ESA-backed space debris sustainability startup, a São Paulo astrobiologist who teaches space agriculture in Brazilian public schools, and leaders from the U.S. Space & Rocket Center's marketing and STEM education programs.

MoonDAO Citizenship is how you get a real seat in humanity's decentralized space program: governance rights, project funding access, and a network of builders, scientists, engineers, and educators working the same problem from a hundred different angles.

​Become a Citizen →​

💰 Rewards, Paid Out

The community allocated last cycle's retroactive reward pool to seven completed projects, spanning a lunar development tabletop game, atmospheric research balloons over the Maldives, and a governance design workshop in Bolivia. Combined with independent contributor rewards, the DAO distributed $7,970 in USDC and 7.32 million vMOONEY to more than 25 contributors this quarter.

Citizens can claim rewards from their dashboard in a few clicks. Contributing to an active project or submitting independent work is how you get in line for the next round.

​Learn More →​

🗳 Nominations Are Open for a Third Executive Seat

MoonDAO's Senate voted to open the field for a new, third Executive Lead seat, running alongside a confirmation vote on Pablo's second term. If both pass, MoonDAO will have its full three-seat Executive structure for the first time. Nominations are open through August 24, with the vote running September 11–16.

​Full timeline and how to submit a nomination →​

📅 Three Astronauts, Three Weeks

Frank White, author of The Overview Effect and the person who gave the space community its most enduring idea, is hosting a run of live conversations with people who've actually seen it. Free, virtual, and open to all.

• Aug 20 — Alan Stern. Planetary scientist, former NASA Associate Administrator, and the Principal Investigator behind New Horizons, the mission that gave humanity its first close-up of Pluto. Alan is also a commercial astronaut who's flown to space himself. This is a rare chance to hear directly from one of the most consequential figures in modern space exploration.
• Aug 27 — Eiman Jahangir, "A Heart for Space." MoonDAO's second astronaut is launching his new book with lessons from space for all of us. It's hard to believe it's been almost two years since the MoonDAO community sent Eiman to space! We love Eiman, and you're not going to want to miss this one.
• Sep 3 — Sharon Hagle. Two-time Blue Origin astronaut and founder of SpaceKids Global, who will be joining us to talk about how we can continue opening space access to more people.

​RSVP for the Town Halls →​

MoonDAO is humanity's decentralized space program, open to anyone who wants to build. If this is the first you're hearing from us in a while, there's no better time to jump in.

​Join MoonDAO →​