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Glite Dictionary
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moon shot

moon shot

5.1
A rocket launch that sends a spacecraft to the moon
  • noun
  • /muːn ʃɑt/
  • Specialized
translation icon : lanzamiento lunar
  • Technological advancements from the moon shot initiatives have helped improve space exploration.

Examples

  • The big news that summer was the moon shot.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • Probably it was how the scientists on the Manhattan Project felt, and the ones at NASA before the first moon shot.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • NASA successfully completed its first moon shot in 1969, landing astronauts on the lunar surface.

  • The Apollo program was America's most famous moon shot, aimed at exploring and studying the Moon.

Synonyms

blastoff
vsmoon shot
3 6.1

The moment a rocket or spacecraft lifts off the ground

is a launch aimed at a particular celestial body rather than any launch

How Ambitious

moon shot
  • Specialized
5.1
test rocket
  • Specialized
5.0

Surface Forms

moon shot singular
moon shots plural

Morphology

moon + shot

The phrase is a clear metaphorical extension of the literal 'a shot at the moon' — 'moon' evokes a distant/lofty target and 'shot' an attempt, so learners who know the constituents can often infer a sense of a bold or ambitious attempt. However, the figurative shift to meaning an 'extremely ambitious or innovative project' is not purely compositional and requires a metaphorical mapping that may not capture all nuances, so it is only partially predictable.

Etymology

Moon shot (sense 1): The noun moon shot comes from the literal image of sending a rocket like a huge shot toward the moon, as if firing something straight into the sky. So it refers to 'the launching of a spacecraft intended to travel to the moon'.