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First Commercial Moon Mission Approved

Posted by Hemos on from the fly-me-to-the-moon dept.

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?"

2 of 575 comments (clear)

  1. Who "owns" the moon, anyway? by rberton · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

  2. Re:Moon as "national park"? by Catbeller · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.