Moon Express Unveils Private Lunar Lander

[Eugene]

Source: SPACE.com

Moon Express Unveils Private Lunar Lander

By Mike Wall, Senior Writer | December 05, 2013 06:30pm ET

A commercial space company has revealed the design of the lunar lander that it aims to send to the moon in 2015.

California-based Moon Express unveiled the blueprint and first images of its MX-1 lunar lander today (Dec. 5) in Las Vegas, during the last day of the Autodesk University computer-aided design conference. In addition to delivering payloads to the lunar surface, the coffee-table-size MX-1 could also help service satellites, deploy tiny "cubesats" in Earth orbit and clean up space junk, company officials say.

"We really have tried to create a multifaceted, flexible and scalable spacecraft that can be utilized by other people for a number of different business applications," Moon Express co-founder and CEO Bob Richards told SPACE.com.

Moon Express designed the MX-1 from the ground up, Richards said. When fully fueled and ready for launch, it will weigh just 1,320 pounds (600 kilograms), with rocket fuel constituting more than 75 percent of the mass.

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Read more: http://www.space.com/23853-moon-express-private-lunar-lander.html



Artists concept

[customerserviceguy]

1. Since we haven't been there

for nearly forty-one years, what makes anyone believe that there is some new need to go back? The race to the moon was essentially a Cold War-era proxy war with the Soviets that we won, that took the sting out of losing Vietnam.

[Warren DeMontague]

2. Whether or not people think we "need" to, we will.

It is a logical outpost for humanity as it moves out into the Solar System, in addition to the fact that there are a lot of resources - from Helium 3 to frozen water, even, in craters at the poles- that we can utilize.

Plus; believe it or not, a lot of very important science came out of the Apollo program.... but the moon is by no means "completely explored". We scratched the surface, barely, of the side facing us. The Far side of the Moon also makes an ideal location for space based telescopes and scientific observations.

There are myriad reasons to "go back", but what will likely happen next is not a rehash of what was done 41 years ago. You will see many nations and private ventures going to the moon, for a bunch of reasons. Eventually there will be permanent and semi-permanent outposts there, as well.

[customerserviceguy]

5. Like I said

if there were significant reasons to go back, some nations or private firms would have figured out a reason in the last four decades.

Don't get me wrong, I was just as fascinated by the space program as any American kid was during the Sixties, but it's clear that the rush was not to get something on the moon, but to win a proxy war on Earth.

[Warren DeMontague]

6. Absolutely.

Which explains the depressing deflation of the space program once it was "won".

But things have steadily marched ahead, anyway, and the reasons for going have remained and become more apparent, over the years.

Also, for all the talk of how "we haven't done anything in space" since Apollo, it's always worth remembering that we've learned far more about the solar system- as well as star systems in our nearby galaxy- in the past few decades than we had in all of human history up to that point.

I consider this an exciting time for space exploration.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. New detectors and other instruments can obtain more, and more accurate, information ...

than 1970's technology. The four lunar probes launched in this century all returned information that had not been obtainable previously. Three others were launched in the 90's. This new information has greatly altered theories about the composition of the lunar crust, particularly the question of the presence or absence of water.

PS: An unmanned moon mission is actually pretty cheap, and can be used to try out new equipment and techniques eventually planned for other planetary probes, with less disastrous consequences in the event of failure or complications.

[customerserviceguy]

4. Ok, other than satisfying geologists

what's that compelling reason to go back? Moon travel would ultimately have to be financially feasible to send people (rather than just equipment) there, but even with an unmanned mission, there has to be some expected return down the line somewhere.

Yes, there may well be moon tourism, but we really need to get near-earth space tourism off the ground as a mature industry well before that happens. I suppose rich people who want to sing on the moon will pony up the bucks for it someday, but that doesn't explain governments wanting to spend precious resources on a barren rock.