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First Commercial Moon Mission Approved
dorantrist writes "A Discovery Channel article that The U.S. Government has just licensed the first commercial mission to the moon to TransOrbital, Inc.. Part of the mission is "to VERIFY Apollo and other landing sites" because there are still a few people out there who believe the Apollo program was a hoax. --Maybe they can also pickup the golf balls left by Alan Shepard?"
I wanna know what right the US has to grant commercial missions to the moon. Like we are the only country that has rights to the moon as a resource.
The next big wars will be over space shipping lanes.
riley
"Trailblazer is expected to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan within the next nine to 12 months. "
So, WTF does it have to do withthe US government?
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
It's not so much a matter of getting permission, but to inform people of what's going on. MOST launches are at least announced, since especially in this day and age, you don't want to launch off rockets without informing anyone. Jittery governments who are in the dark might think its the start of a nuclear attack. This HAS happened in the past. We don't care that you launch rockets, we just want to make sure they're going into space and not somewhere else.
Its also important that if something goes wrong with the spacecraft and all contact is lost, the craft (or debris from it) can be tracked by those who are most concerned about such things. A single screw in low earth orbit can cause major havoc if it impacts a spacecraft. You want to know where it is.
The other issue is to insure compliance with any international treaties with regards to propulsion systems or use of celestial bodies for which someone at one point in time might have signed a treaty for. True, they could launch the rocket anyway, and probably nobody could do much about it. But there's no sense pissing anyone off if a yes answer is overwhelmingly probable anyway.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
There wouldn't be any strip mines. The moon doesn't appear to have layers of strata that require removal of the surface to access.
The surface *is* the material we want: metallic oxides, rich in yummy aluminum, titanium, iron and O2.
To mine it, you merely scoop it up into a truck.
As for marring the beauty of the surface, the moon has none to speak of. It looks like Verdun after WW I.
I'm all for preserving natural beauty on earth, and mining the moon for material would be great help in reducing mining on earth. As far as I'm concerned, the moon is a lovely resource.
You could not see the activities on the moon from Earth anyway, not without a major scope. You'd never notice a thing.
There's nothing ALIVE on the moon, so we should use it.
I think life appearing on a dead world would spruce it up a bit.
Personally, I'd like to see the Apollo landing site declared an International Historical Site. As the man said, it was a giant leap for all of mankind, and I'd like to see it preserved as-is.
Yes, I know this mission is just going to take pictures, but sooner or later someone (Chinese? Bill Gates?) is going to once again land on the moon, and could casually destroy a significant part of mankind's history.