A For-Profit Trip To The Moon

jrg writes "The company, TranOrbital, Inc. has a project, TrailBlazer, to become the first (early 2001) commercial space mission to enter lunar orbit. They plan to do this for a fraction of the price it would cost NASA, plus they plan to map the entire surface of the moon in unprecedented detail using HDTV video cameras (finally, we get to see those alien bases! ;) ). If they can pull it off as cheaply as they claim, this might signal a new phase in the human utilization of space. "

Comments

Why?

[infodragon]

I first asked my self, "Why would a corporation be interested in making an extremely detailed map of the mood?" Then it just hit me.

An extremely detailed map would allow for planning a more in-depth mission. Possibly for mineral/metal prospecting for future mining missions. For a corporation the moon may be the most valuable untapped resource EVER.

They wouldn't have any government regulations. How can you pollute an already lethally radioactive environment? You cannot pollute an atmosphere because there isn't one.

You have the stability of a huge body (not an asteroid with almost no gravity) with low gravity. The low gravity would allow for cheaper movement and processing of the minerals on the moon. The minerals produced would be much stronger due to the low gravity and the vacuum of space. You also have water, which was recently found on the southern poll.

After you have set up shop you must get the goods back to earth. Well the low gravity of the moon and vacuum of space presents a rely cool option. You can build a huge catapult that would launch the goods at tremendous speeds, kinda like they have on an aircraft carrier. These goods would fall into orbit around the earth and be used for whatever... A space station or brought back to earth for sale.

The possibilities are endless and mankind finally has the technology to explore them.

Clearly The Way Things Are Going

[waldoj]

There's been more and more talk from NASA about skipping Mars missions, never going back to the moon, etc. This is kind of sad, but probably OK.

We all know that commercial enterprise can do way better with space missions than the government. Primarily because there's no overarching benefit to the goverment sponsoring space trips anymore. The research, while it should, IMHO, be government-sponsored, will probably go better as a commercial system.

Less screw-ups, more competition, lower prices. Get me a room on that Lunar Hilton, baby!

-Waldo

trash

[clearcache]

...great. They're offering people the opportunity to have their business cards and/or a personal message deposited on the moon. Wonderful way to mark the first commercial space venture...dumping a load of paper on earth's only natural satellite...

...and yes, I do detect some foreshadowing here...as if commerce hasn't fscked up our own planet enough, it's time to branch out and fsck up the entire solar system.

A Modest Proposal

[TwP]

On their website, TransOrbital Inc. offers anyone willing to cough up the cash the opportunity to have their business card flown to the moon on their space vehicles. All this for a mere $2000 (US). If that is a little to steep, then you can have a personal letter, poetry (or whatever else will fit onto an 8-1/2" x 11" piece of paper) etched onto a nickel disk (read "stored on a hard drive") and sent to the moon for $50 a page.

My proposal is to take the currently disputed Slashdot pages along with Microsoft's basterdized Kerberos code and send them to the moon. We could all send a few dollars to CmdrTaco (et. al.) to pay for the disk space on the satellite. It would be Slashdot's new claim to fame -- the only website violating the DMCA on two celestial bodies. And, if Bill wants the code removed, he can go to the moon and get it himself!

Maybe Slashdot could run a server on the moon and get around the DMCA all together . . . but that damn network latency!

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If there was no private exploration in history

[georgeha]

Let's just think what our history would be like if the only allowed exploration of unexplored territory was via government sponsored agencies.

~100,000 BC, Oldavie Gorge

The tribal government reports an arid landscape once you pass the Nile, we don't think it's commericially viable to send anything out there.

Plus, the youngsters of the tribe think we should concentrate on making Oldavie perfect before we send out any expeditions.

-15,000 BC Kamchatka

Well, yeah, maybe there is something to the northeast, but it's probably just frozen wasteland.

~1492, Spain

While some of the native did display strange fruits and vegetables, and gold and gems, we don't think the commercial exploitation of the new world is viable.

We will send scientific teams to explore the new world, once every 10 or 20 years.

-~1600, England

Perhaps we could work within the system of the Church of England, since Parliament won't authorize a colonizing expedition to the New World.

I could go on.

George

Where have all the geeks gone?

[dazedNconfuzed]

Not long ago, a proposition to cheaply and profitably put people on the Moon was a rallying point for geeks. New uncharted lands! Life in space! Vast resources! Fascinating environments! Geeks would walpaper their cubes with pictures of rockets, Moon landings, and sketches of non-Earth colonies. Building and occupying a Moon colony used to be one of the holy grails of engineering.

But...nearly all responses to this news item today have been "aw gee, why would anyone want to go to the Moon? they might make it dirty! and jerks might go there." Come on people! What happened to the sense of adventure? of engineering challenges? of survival challenges? of profit motive? of any combination of these? What happened to all the geeks that would give their left nut in a heartbeat for a ticket on a Moon-bound rocket to build a colony?

Geekdom is dead - replaced by politically correct, green, TV-mesmerized lumps.

Re:A Good Thing?

[Sun Tzu]

Too late. Our respective governments have had such a monopoly on that for so long that there is already a huge number of objects up there in orbit. In 1963 the U.S. Air Force launched into orbit 400 million tiny needle-sized objects in a single experiment! Maybe that's why we see so few UFO's these days... ;)

Got Spam from TO on Wednesday

[Mike Caprio]

An image of the spacecraft they sent me

Here's the text of their email to me:

TransOrbital Offers the 1st Commercial Spaceflight to the Moon

A Project Participation Opportunity with a For-Profit Space Venture

Solicitation of Interest

Not only will the 2001 TrailBlazer Project be the first commercial spaceflight to the Moon; it will also return the first video from the Moon in thirty years. The video will be of very high quality and digitally enhanced, showing the lunar surface details as has never been seen before.

The entire Project is intended to cost a small fraction of what it would cost NASA to complete a similar project.

TransOrbital Inc. has developed a low-cost, video spacecraft project for lunar orbit. TransOrbital's commercially funded robotic spacecraft, 2001 TrailBlazer, will return HDTV video from lunar orbit for use as Internet content and other commercial products. The privately held company has already arranged for a launch aboard the "Strela" launch vehicle. The 2001 TrailBlazer Project is a for-profit Space Venture and will produce high-quality video and other products such as:

• The first advertising opportunity in lunar orbit
• Video with lunar background showing corporate logos on a sub-spacecraft
• Earthrise 2001: A defining video image for the New Millennium
• Final de-orbit video, up to moment of impact
• An atlas of the entire lunar surface for students & planetary scientists
• High-resolution aerial photography of pre-targeted sites on the Moon
• Low-altitude, high-speed video, for Hollywood science-fiction movies footage
• The first deep space email service, from lunar orbit
• Interactive Lunar Flight CD-ROM game made from the photography

The photos from lunar orbit will be very high resolution, utilizing a telescope with an HDTV camera. "We expect to be able to see the tire tracks from the Apollo-era rovers."

Excellent Website and Portal Content

"We want to do for the Moon what Jacques Cousteau did for marine exploration, to go, to see, sell the images as content and repeat it again and again." The Project will provide exceptional long-term content for TransOrbital customers' Internet portals during construction of the spacecraft, the launch, and throughout the spaceflight to the Moon. This exciting Project can propel customers' portals to the forefront of the Web, as the premiere sites for content, education and news about space and the Moon. The spacecraft will also provide small cargo delivery service for relics and personal & business cards, to a hard landing on the lunar surface.

The Project will be fully insured against launch and technical failure, assuring the return of deposits in the event of disaster, a welcome feature incorporated into TransOrbital's business plan. TransOrbital is seeking additional associates and customers for products created during the 2001 TrailBlazer Project.

Point of Contact:
Gregory Nemitz
VP, TransOrbital, Inc.
3672-A Bancroft St.
San Diego, CA 92104
Tel: 619-528-0520
Fax: 619-693-3039
gnemitz@transorbital.net
http://www.transorbital.net

Mike Caprio, mikecap@nospamldbw.com

A similar mission

[Maurice]

I remember that there was a similar mission to map the moon back in 1994. It was called Clementine and was a joint project of NASA and the Air Force. The probe had all sorts of cameras in it (IR, UV, visible) plus a laser rangefinder, and it basically mapped the moon in extreme detail. The probe was to flyby an asteroid after it finished mapping but its engine failed during that latter stage.
Anyway, that mission was extremely cheap and the probe was very small (about 200kg IIRC). In fact they launched it on an Air Force surplus Titan 2 ICBM. I don't remember the total cost, but it was less than $100M and the mission took pictures in many wavelengths plus it made a relief map of the moon using the laser rangefinder. I don't think this commercial mission will contribute anything new to science, it looks like it will just take pictures of company logos on a moon-Earth background.
There was also the Lunar Prospector which had alpha, gamma and neutron spectrometers to study the materials that make up the moon. It cost even less than Clementine.
So don't diss on NASA with the cost of Lunar missions. Unmanned small probes to the Moon are not too hard to make and considering those guys just have one video camera, hell, you could almost launch that thing on SCUD missile for a ridiculously low cost and hope to recoup the money by taking stupid ad photos that anyone can do in photoshop in like 5 minutes.

Interesting!

[Bad Mojo]

"... this might signal a new phase in the human utilization of space."

I wonder what the load average of space is now?

[root@space /root]#w

1:02pm up 71 days, 3:33, ALOT users, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00


Bad Mojo