moonshot

or moon shot

[ moon-shot ]

noun

1. the act or procedure of launching a rocket or spacecraft to the moon.
2. a very challenging and innovative project or undertaking:

   Technology companies are investing in moonshots that address the world’s greatest problems.

3. Baseball. a high-velocity home run in which the ball reaches an extraordinary height:

   What could be more exciting than a bases-clearing moonshot over the right field wall in the bottom of the eleventh inning?

adjective

1. relating to or noting a very challenging and innovative project or undertaking:

   His department takes moonshot ideas and brings them to reality.

moonshot

/ ˈmuːnˌʃɒt /

noun

1. the launching of a spacecraft, rocket, etc, to the moon

Word History and Origins

Origin of moonshot¹

An Americanism dating back to 1945–50 moonshot fordef 1; moon + shot ¹; the baseball sense, also capitalized as Moon shot, was named after Wallace Wade “Wally” Moon (1930–2018), U.S. baseball player, whose home run helped the Dodgers win the 1959 pennant

Example Sentences

They were frenemies, building competing app stores, devices, services and moonshot projects.

From Washington Post

The firm said on Thursday evening that it was winding down Loon, a nine-year-old project and a two-and-a-half-year-old spin-off firm, after failing to find a sustainable business model and partners for one of its most prominent moonshot projects.

From TechCrunch

While Project Brooklyn is the biggest moonshot in Razer’s offerings, the company also built a reusable mask called Project Hazel.

From Popular-Science

Nearly 250 SPACs were formed in 2020, breaking past the historical record by a moonshot.

From Fortune

It seemed such a strange thing for an Internet company to spend its time and energy on, a “moonshot” as the company’s engineers called such massive efforts.

From Nautilus

Her moonshot, she said, is “being on every smartphone, every tablet, and every PC for every Internet user.”

From The Daily Beast