1st Private Moon Landing Set for 2017

"Moon Express", a company in California, wants to be the first private organization to send a lander to the moon.

California-based company Moon Express, which aims to fly commercial missions to the moon and help unlock its resources, has signed a five-launch deal with Rocket Lab, with the first two robotic liftoffs scheduled to take place in 2017.

1st Private Moon Landing Set for 2017


Their main goal is to be at the ground-floor of programs that would use the moon for commercial use and for its resources:

The MX-1 landers that blast off atop an Electron will be relatively small, constrained by the rocket's size.. But the MX-1 is scalable, Richards said, and can be modified as needed to help the company achieve its ambitious goal of opening up the moon and its resources to commercial use.

Here is more information about the Lunar Express lander:

Moon Express Unveils Private Lunar Lander




Moon express is one of the organizations involved in the Google Lunar X Prize competition. The link below take you to Moon Express' "about" page on the Lunar X Prize website:

lunar.xprize.org...

and help unlock its resources

NO!

Without the Moon the earth will die, so no greedy ahole should be allowed to take a single gram from the moon!

a reply to: VoidHawk

While the sentiment I agree with I think we have to get Helium 3 from the moon to make a fusion reactor.
It would sort out out energy needs once and for all, we don't have much helium 3 on earth.


www.esa.int...

www.dailymail.co.uk... crisis.html

If we want a livable earth we must get the sweet sweet Helium 3 .

I think we need to rethink the space treaties tbh we do need to update them and make some laws about what we can and can't do with celestial bodies.


Oh and OP I'm disappointed tbh that this has to be done privately we should be all doing this as a species and have a world space agency with everyone backing it.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

Nice!

The more private enterprises are made to the Moon, the more we as a people gain knowledge about how to properly do the same.

a reply to: swanne

But at the end of the day they do it to make money we do need an international space agency like star trek .
We need to get behind space travel and such more because it is our future.

I'm backing the UK crowd funded mission to the moon and I'm gonna send my DNA to the moon for the future earthlings or aliens to find in a million years .

lunarmissionone.com...

I don't think it's feasible to off set the moons mass to a considerable degree via mining at this stage of the game perhaps some day but not today.

The moon is rather resource rich in certain elements that are harder to aquire on earth such as helium 3 and titanium. The moons low gravity is ideal as a launching platform it would be a great stepping stone for further space exploration. If your horrible opposed to the mining of a the moon a base still could be constucted to mine asteroids that are towed in.

Personally I am of the mindset that mining of not just the moon but every heavenly body available should be pursued. The more we take from out there the less we have to take from here. The moon is our geosynchronous protector so as long as we don't blow it up taking a few tons of He3 we should be fine.




a reply to: VoidHawk

a reply to: boymonkey74

Exactly. They use their knowledge for financial gain. But once we have the same knowledge, we can use it for actual practical implications.

I saw your edit:

Nice. Going to read more about this project. This field is, as you point out, our future indeed.

a reply to: Athetos

I'm sure I heard Jupiter would be very good for mining Helium 3 also but we are way off doing that.
Tiny steps and like you said the moon is going to be our launchpad off this rock.
Thing is I'm so Jelly of what I will miss .

a reply to: swanne

Yeah it's good but I wanted uniforms and stuff .
Mind you as long as we don't blow the moon out of orbit and fly across space like these guys we will be ok.



We can't call any base moonbase alpha btw.

originally posted by: boymonkey74
we should be all doing this as a species and have a world space agency with everyone backing it.

Need a president?

I specialize in astronomy, out-of-the-box theoretical physics, and time travel formulations...

Mind you as long as we don't blow the moon out of orbit

Hehe I agree

a reply to: swanne

Oh dude gonna make a thread .
Cheers for the inspiration all .

a reply to: boymonkey74

No problem.

Moon base Beta.

originally posted by: boymonkey74
a reply to: VoidHawk

While the sentiment I agree with I think we have to get Helium 3 from the moon to make a fusion reactor.

Am I correct in thinking that the current belief is that - The moon was created from material from earth after a giant collision some millions of years ago?
If so, why does the moon have an abundance of materials that are rare on earth?

And I still say no to removing ANYTHING from the moon because we need it, and you know what corpos are like, for example just look at what they've done to the forests that used to be in abundance on earth! Once they start taking they wont stop.

a reply to: VoidHawk

Yes and no.

It was created through a collision with another planet.

It also has been sitting in space with no atmosphere nor any magnetic field to protect it, exposed to radiation and cosmic rays for billions of years.

Tends to affect the geology and mineralogy.

Also: Mining the moon would not affect it's mass. If you were to add up all the mass of every single thing humans have mined here on Earth since humans could dig in the dirt, that mass would barely even equal a fraction of the Moon's mass.

Doing anything to the moon that would remove it from orbit, change it's mass significantly in anyway, or even change it's orbit, is well beyond any technology that we currently have or anything in the near future. Maybe a thousand years from now we might.

a reply to: VoidHawk

It comes from the solar winds and because of a lack of atmosphere it collects in the moon dust, If you heat it to 600 degrees it releases the helium 3.
One of the main reasons helium-3 is sought as a fusion fuel is because there are no neutrons generated as a reaction product. The protons that do get generated have charge, and can therefore be safely contained using electromagnetic fields.

Thus cheap safe nuclear fuel.
www.extremetech.com...

So the Chinese are one step ahead.
Oh and no new thread btw someone has already done one asking what I was going to ask...great minds lol.

Can they bring all of our politicians there? I can't see it being profitable to start mining the moon.

originally posted by: Athetos

I don't think it's feasible to off set the moons mass to a considerable degree via mining at this stage of the game perhaps some day but not today.

If all the material mined from the moon is brought back to earth, then the total mass of the earth/moon system remains constant. While the moon's mass is decreased, the earth's is increased by the same amount. That means the combined gravitational pull exerted by both bodies remains the same. There is no danger of the moon flying out of orbit due to it being less massive.

Of course, if a considerable amount of the mined material is converted to energy, all bets are off. But even a tiny bit of mass can be converted into a gigantic amount of energy. So if we don't completely waste that energy, it would take a very, very long time to send the moon off course.

originally posted by: VoidHawk

and help unlock its resources

NO!

Without the Moon the earth will die, so no greedy ahole should be allowed to take a single gram from the moon!

Don't worry about it , I will explain it all in a thread I'm drafting for 2017 "Why the 1st private moon landing was a hoax" thread.

Because of treaties signed decades ago...governments aren't 'allowed' to 'own' the moon or other stellar objects
However...private companies are not prohibited...
So the governments can by proxy help lead with their cash...but not their flag

Oh by the way I'm the CEO of the First International Space Corporation

Just saying

i dont think it will happen
sadly