WASHINGTON -- A handful of small U.S. space companies are plotting a return to the moon, triggering their own version of a 21st-century style lunar race.
The companies, mostly start-up ventures, are busy trying to pull together both the technological know-how and the money to send spacecraft into lunar orbit or land upon on the moon's surface.
At stake is more than just bragging rights. The companies believe a moon mission can yield profits, mostly in the entertainment and information arenas.
"All of these companies intend to return healthy profits from their projects, and all of them want the notoriety that will come with success as the first private commercial venture to the moon," said Gregory Nemitz, president of one entrant, TransOrbital.
The Alexandria, Virginia, company plans to develop a low-cost video photography mission for lunar orbit.
| A Lunar Sampler |
| At least five companies are raising money and developing technology ina race to be the first commercial group to land on the moon. Want to learn more? |
The idea is to do for the moon what Jacques Cousteau did for the oceans -- to go and explore and sell the images over and over again.
"The fact that there are at least five companies that are serious about the prospects for completely commercial lunar projects indicates that the technology required is well within the grasp of non-government organizations," Nemitz said.
As Nemitz sees it, that amounts to a full-blown race to the moon.
"This time the race is by private industry, not superpower nations, and it is already underway below the threshold of the general public's awareness," he said.
"The actual contest is the race to secure the funding required," Nemitz said. "The companies are all working as hard as they can to convince major investors that the next hot stock opportunity is not an internet company but is the new and emerging space companies."
One cash-flush candidate is believed to be idealab!, a Pasadena, California firm that creates, launches and operates internet businesses.
Founded in March 1996 by entrepreneur Bill Gross, idealab! now has some 50 businesses in various stages of development. But the company is guarded about its lunar plans.
In a brief statement to SPACE.com, the company said it was "constantly exploring new ideas, among them the possibilities at the intersection of the internet, global media and commercial and private space sectors. If it is determined that viable business opportunities can be developed in this arena, announcements will be made when appropriate."
Also in hush-hush mode about the moon race is SpaceDev of Poway, California.
"We're working on two sets of missions, but we can't say anything about them," said James Benson, SpaceDev's chairman. "These missions are credible and partially fundedand we're involved in mission and spacecraft design on both of them."
The idea of focused, inexpensive deep-space missions as a commercial product is as revolutionary today as personal computers were only 20 years ago, he said.
"For right now, the only value of the moon is entertainment. There has been a convergence of the internet, space and interesting content. It doesn't have to come from just the moon but the moon is pretty close," Benson said.
Denise Norris, president of Applied Space Resources, another contender, said her firm has spent more than two years trying to understand the demographics of the people interested in space.
Her company is seeking $2 million to start building a moon lander designed to snap up rock samples and bring them to Earth for sale. It projects total mission costs at $70 million.
"Clearly, we think the key to getting into space is not to be an aerospace company or a micro-Boeing or something like that. You have to be a marketing company on the lookout for terrestrial markets," Norris said.
LunaCorp. of Arlington, Virginia, has been pondering a commercial moon visit since 1989.
"Things are becoming more possible now than they have before," said David Gump, the company's president. "The believability of going back to the moon with robots has increased," he said.
Gump said going to the moon gets cheaper every year. But identifying the customer base is paramount.
"We think you've got to prove that the customers exist before you can go to the investment community and get any substantial amount of money," Gump said. "One of the key turning points will be when lower cost launch services become available."
Getting to the moon in a faster, better, cheaper fashion is something Alan Binder understands.
Binder, the principal investigator for NASA's $63 million Lunar Prospector mission, is guardedly optimistic that a private return to the moon can happen.
"We're all hopeful that each of us somehow succeeds and that will get the whole thing going," said Binder, now director of the Lunar Research Institute in Tucson, Arizona.
"But my view is that talk is cheap. It takes money to buy beer. When somebody actually starts putting their spacecraft together, I'll believe it," he said.
Binder said his efforts these days are directed at persuading Congress to give NASA the money to buy research data collected by private companies. That way, he said, selling science to the government can be mixed with other types of commercial or entertainment ventures.
"We are all in the same boat, paddling the same directionto the moon," Binder said.
advertisement
