Moon Valley could go the way of many entrepreneurial space dreams. But ispace has a functional rover, a mission plan that scaffolds itself toward a space city, big backing, international aims, and a solid “go get ‘em” from its home country. They just might do it.

Although ispace is now its own organ, its began as an appendage of a European organization called White Label Space. In 2008, White Label Space signed up to participate in the Google Lunar X Prize. Entrants, attempting to nab the then-$20 million prize, were to send a spacecraft to the moon's surface, drive a rover 500 meters, and send quality photos and video back to Earth.

White Label Space partnered with Yoshida’s robotics lab, and in 2010, the team formed White Label Space Japan, LLC. All four members of the Japanese contingent, including ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada, had day jobs. “In my case, consulting,” says Hakamada. But he cut back on his hours, working three days for the man and two days on this new space venture. Having more time than the others, he stepped in as the leader.

White Label Space, Europe, was supposed to build the lunar lander, and the Japanese contingent would build the rover, which they soon named Sorato. It means “white rabbit,” which in the US we’d probably take to mean “something crazy you follow into a crazy-hole.” But in Japanese folklore, it's more benign: There, "the man in the moon" is not a man but a rabbit.

Getting to that lunar lagomorph would prove tough, though. Space itself may be hard, as they all always say when rockets blow up, but the practicalities of running a space company are potentially harder. During the early years, the employees were just volunteers. Hakamada siphoned off his own finances. And the Google Lunar X Prize, which started out with 32 teams and ended up with five, grieves many fallen soldiers—White Label Space, Europe, among them. When their European teammates dropped out in 2013, the Japan-based members continued the work. They rebranded the team "Hakuto," and rechristened its parent company ispace (rather than White Label Space Japan).

But despite the new start, it was a bad time for the team. “In 2013, my bank account was almost close to zero,” says Hakamada.

But then, like a deus ex machina, the Google Lunar X Prize announced a set of interim goals—and rewards—that would give the flagging companies a carrot. Hakamada borrowed money from his parents to keep the team running—and then Hakuto won the Mobility Milestone, netting half a million dollars. “That was the first public recognition we were in the right place,” says Walker. People took notice—abroad and at home.

“Japanese people love space,” says Hidetaka Aoki, a venture capitalist at the Global Brain Corporation, where he’s in charge of the space and robotics division. Japan is second only to the US in the number of space-startup investors. But much of that money goes to startups outside Japan. Japan Airlines, for instance, invested in Colorado-based Boom Technology, which is building a supersonic plane. Tokyo-based Itochu Corporation gave funding to satellite analytics company Orbital Insight.

At home, there aren’t yet that many space startups to invest in. That's a hole Aoki has helped to shrink, in part by working with the government, which announced in March that it would establish a $940 million-dollar venture-capital fund for cosmic corporations that have some connection to Japan. Aoki also co-founded Spacetide, Japan's first conference for the private space industry. And then there’s the S-Matching program, a platform that matches space companies to orbit-minded investors, of which there are currently 46 listed, including Japan Airlines and Nikon. Giant Japanese tech companies, says Aoki, have so much cash “they don’t know what to do with it now.” Might as well throw it at some promising space companies, right?