Privately Funded Lunar Mission Set a Launch Date For 2017

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday October 7, 2015 @06:40AM from the to-the-moon dept.

merbs writes: If all goes according to plan, the world's first private lunar mission will be launched just two years from now. SpaceIL, an Israeli nonprofit, has secured a launch contract with Spaceflight Industries, and will aim to land a rover on the moon in the second half of 2017. It's the first such launch contract to be verified by the $30 million Google Lunar XPrize competition. Another group called Moon Express has signed a deal with New Zealand-based company, Rocket Lab, to launch and put a lander on the lunar surface 2017.

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Re:A Rover? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-07 07:00 · Score: 4, Insightful

We don't have the post WWII impetus and properly taxed corporations of the 1960s anymore. We have a fractured populace entertained to death, and any increased productivity or technological gains are immediately funneled up towards the rich.
Funny how a society with single income families and no cell phones was able to put people on the Moon, hm?