Abstract
Participants of a symposium on "What is the Moon?" which was held by "Economy of Space" study committee of the Japan Macro-Engineers Society gave answers to the question of the symposium title, while another group of answers were obtained from graduate students majoring in engineering. This paper includes typical answers of the both groups as historical records of people's minds for space development, and then, motivations of the past moon projects like the Apollo program and the recent moon projects were analyzed in terms of this question. As a result, the basic idea governing the moon projects in the Apollo era was that the moon would be a new territory, while the recent moon projects seem to be intended to solve directly the scientific questions about substance of the moon.
