Posted on 08/03/2016 6:52:05 AM PDT by BenLurkin
For the first time ever, a private company has permission to land on the moon.
The U.S. government has officially approved the planned 2017 robotic lunar landing of California-based Moon Express, which aims to fly commercial missions to Earth's nearest neighbor and help exploit its resources, company representatives announced today (Aug. 3).
...
Previously, companies had been able to operate only on or around Earth. The new approval, while exclusive to Moon Express, could therefore serve as an important regulatory guide for deep-space commercial activity in general, Richards said.
"Nobody's had a deep-sea voyage yet. We're still charting those waters," he said. "Somebody had to be first."
Moon Express submitted an application to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on April 8. The document then made its way through the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Department of Defense, NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Federal Communications Commission, Richards said.
The interagency approval process "took some time, not because anybody was against or averse to this," he said. "It's just that we asked questions that had never been asked before, and that had to be addressed and worked out."
Moon Express can now focus exclusively on the financial and technical challenges of the 2017 moon mission, which will begin with the launch of the company's MX-1 lander atop a Rocket Lab Electron booster. (
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Can you imagine one of Heinlein’s “juvenile” stories where they need “approval” to land on the moon?
STICK A MAN ON IT!!!!!!!!!!
Buzz is still around and I bet he would go again!
The first private citizen to land on the moon should be given the honorary name Delos D. Harriman.
Can you imagine a world where the US government thinks it owns the moon? Permission? Pah! And when other countries want to land there?
I believe it’s only US companies we regulate, and other nations do the same if I heard right.
You have to get them past the satellite orbits safely so their flight has to be mapped carefully, both with the known and unknown paths. Big mess if they hit another one and spread crap around up there as what happened a few years ago, the ISS is still dodging that stuff on a regular basis now.
I don’t think we have a problem with putting stuff on the moon itself though.
Build a spaceship, go to the moon, salvage all the junk up there and sell it. Jettison Salvage Company.
*ping*
I was just thinking that. I’m re-reading The Man Who Sold the Moon right now, one of my favourite Heinleins though not really a juvenile one.
They should just go and do it!
Cheers,
Jim
As one NASA scientist said it, “If there was a HUGE pile of gold bricks on the moon, we couldn’t afford to bring them back.”
THIS:
“...which aims to fly commercial missions to Earth’s nearest neighbor and help exploit its resources.”
Science fiction is now fact.
Aren't we worried about starting Climate Change on the moon?
I’ll bite.
What is that supposed to be a picture of?
But what if it images things not approved for public viewing?
Like what?
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