Moon Express to the Moon: green light to private travel in Space – The Republic

THE exploration road for private companies is leveled and, with it, also that for future ” lunar mines ”. The decision, historic in its own way, is that the US government has given the go ahead to Moon Express, founded by the Indian tycoon Naveen Jain to go to the moon with an unmanned mission. The company emphasized on the website of the authorization news, published by the Federal Aviation US administration and also disclosed a tweet

the mission, scheduled for 2017, will be the first private expedition to land on our natural satellite. So far, in fact, they have left footprints in the lunar dust only American astronauts, Soviet and Chinese modules.

Science and Business . At 58 years by the impact of the USSR probe Luna 2, which crashed west of the Sea of ​​Serenity, Moon Express perhaps will mark the beginning of a new Era: space exploration beyond Earth orbit by organizations not public. With a lens that does not relate, as expected, the pure scientific research. Moon Express in fact, collect soil samples within the perspective of mining the moon in search of items and valuable substances. Among those declared there is Helium-3, virtually non-existent chemical element isotope on Earth but considered essential for the development of clean nuclear energy. Permission arrived, we read about MoonExpress.com, “after extensive discussions with the FAA, the White House, the State Department, NASA and other federal agencies.” The favorable opinion has come once we see that the launch of the MX-1E module “does not endanger the health and public safety, property safety, national security or foreign policy interests, or international obligations of the United States “.

It is a historical precedent, according to the Treaty on outer space (outer space treaty, the 1967, signed by the majority of countries) are the individual states have to give approval for a mission of another celestial body and supervise the performance.

ok to MoonEx request, based nell’Ames NASA research park in Mountain View, California, among other arrives less than a year after approval by the US Congress of “Commercial space launch competitiveness Act”, a law that encourages the exploration and exploitation of resources in the part of US citizens space. “in short, the authorization to dig came before than to take off.

Among the requirements is that of absolute transparency and cooperation in providing the maneuvering data to and from the moon, not to interfere with other space missions and, of course, does not contaminate other worlds with terrestrial life forms. Difficult, given the difficult conditions on the moon.

Moon Express has thus won the first race for the new “race to the Moon” but it is in the head (and encouraged) to another competition: the Lunar X Google Prize. Big G has promised $ 20 million to the first private company that manages to make “land on the Moon,” a robot, do it ‘Walking for at least 500 meters and sending video to Earth, and high-definition photos. A company that seems within reach of the lander MTV-1X, designed for a soft landing displacements by jumps, taking advantage of the weak force of gravity. Not by chance is the American space agency partners for research on new lunar lander models.

The company has one of the founders, in addition to the previously mentioned Jain (President), the Canadian entrepreneur Robert ( Bob) Richards (CEO) and computer scientist Barney Pell. Born in 2010, he went to add to the ranks of private companies with interests beyond the borders of the sky: Naveen Jain as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, another billionaire ‘visionary goals with almost science fiction.

According Housekeeping, Jain and co-founders of MoonEx will be the first to get that far. Although they will not be the only ones. Jeff Bezos at the time he got, always on the FAA, authorization to fly in low orbit for his Virgin Galactic, a further step towards space tourism. And while Elon Musk with SpaceX looks toward Mars and the Russian Yuri Milner (together with Stephen Hawking and Mark Zuckerberg ) even points to Alpha Centauri , the star closest to us, with Francisco Rush Breakthrough program, the Indian billionaire is a small step, but in the immediate future. Without hiding the real purpose is the money, stating candidly to the New York Times : “To paraphrase Kennedy, we chose to go to the moon not because it is easy but because it is good business.”