When a space-industry analyst recently ranked the most likely nations to send people back to the moon, the first four picks were yawners: the US, Russia, China, and India. But the fifth contender came from out of deep left field—or rather, out of a tiny landmass in the Irish Sea called the Isle of Man.

The island—a British “crown dependency” that’s part of neither the UK nor the EU—is home to two dozen space-industry firms, a booming space-related financial services sector, and the highest concentration of International Space University graduates in the world. You won’t see rockets blasting off from the isle’s cow pastures, but the Manx (as the 80,000 or so inhabitants are known) are space-business whizzes. The zero-percent corporate tax appeals to the zero-gravity crowd, as does the enthusiasm and stability of its government—the parliament, called the Tynwald, has been laying down the law for 1,031 years.

Excalibur Almaz, a leading space-tourism company, is based in Douglas, the isle’s capital. The Manx firm Odyssey Moon was the first official entrant in Google’s $30 million Lunar X Prize, and when teams met last fall, they convened on the Isle of Man. The race to return to the moon is on! May the best Manx win.