moon shot

noun

variants or moonshot

ˈmün-ˌshät 

plural moon shots or moonshots

1

a

: a spacecraft mission to the moon

And among the nearly endless tasks that had to be completed for the Apollo moon shot, one woman spearheaded a critical engineering project: testing all the small gear the astronauts would take with them to the lunar surface.

—Kathryn Tully

b

: an extremely ambitious project or mission undertaken to achieve a monumental goal

He is leading biology's moon shot; the Human Genome Project, a $3 billion, 15-year effort to pinpoint the location of all 100,000 human genes.

—Paul Hoffman

This month, a group of billionaires … announced a moonshot of their own—a $1 billion joint venture to develop clean energy technology and bring it to market.

—Alan Fleischmann

2

sports : a hit or thrown ball that travels a great distance with a high trajectory

… paused at the plate to admire the second of the three homers—a moon shot that landed a few rows short of a homemade sign in the rightfield bleachers …

—Tim Crothers

White's pass, like his 43-yard touchdown to Tony Hill in the fourth quarter, was a moon shot, a high arching thing that took an hour to come down.

—Paul Zimmerman

Examples of moon shot in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

After severely limping around the mound, Severino stayed in, but his velocity was briefly compromised, and Arizona capitalized for the straight hits, including Joc Pederson’s two-run moon shot to right. —Tim Britton, The Athletic, 28 Aug. 2024

One dazzling 2014 demonstration of Watson’s brainpower showed off its potential to transform medicine using AI—a goal that IBM CEO Virginia Rometty often calls the company’s moon shot. —IEEE Spectrum, 2 Apr. 2019

The cancer moon shot includes university research projects and grants, with a long-term goal of improving the prevention and treatment of the disease. —Haisten Willis, Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, 28 July 2024

Rodriguez said that restoring sight in James’ left eye through a whole eye transplant was a moon shot from the get-go but that performing the surgery provided other benefits, as well. —Kaitlin Sullivan, NBC News, 9 Nov. 2023

Word History

First Known Use

1949, in the meaning defined at sense 1a