The race to mine the moon heats up
Companies competing to be the first private company to land an unmanned craft on the moon
Companies competing to be the first private company to land an unmanned craft on the moon
Companies competing to be the first private company to land an unmanned craft on the moon
The last time a human went to the moon was aboard Apollo 17 in 1972.
Now there is a fierce competition to get an unmanned spacecraft back to the moon. Moon Express, which is based in Florida but has ties to the University of Maryland, is trying to send a spacecraft there to mine precious minerals from the moon.
Some are raising the question of whether we should be messing with the moon.
It used to be global powers competing to get to the moon, but now it is private companies jockeying to be the first thanks to the Google Lunar X competition.
Google will pay $20 million to the first private company that successfully lands an unmanned craft on the moon, moves it 500 meters and then transmits HD pictures back to Earth.
Moon Express, founded by a pair of Silicon Valley billionaires, aims to be that company. Its mission is to mine the moon mainly of tritium, a very rare and valuable element used for fuel and fusion.
The University of Maryland will be piggybacking on that mission.
University of Maryland astrophysicist Douglas Currie has arranged with his colleagues to deliver a new set of lunar laser ranging rays.
Experts hope the new generation of reflectors or mirrors, which are small yet very expensive, will help study and lead to an understanding of the mysteries behind dark matter, which makes up about 70 percent of the universe.
“The ability of the increased accuracy will enable us to address the many theories in which people are saying this change of general relativity or this change will be able to say yes or no,” Currie said.
Noah Petro, a lunar expert at the Goddard Space Center, said any opportunity to get back to the moon is good.
Petro said NASA has embraced private companies interested in space exploration, which has married profit with experimentation.
“Private companies get to go to the moon and we get to come along and learn about lunar surface, so it's a win-win in both cases,” Noah said.
Petro said science fiction-type images of the moon breaking up from too much mining are just fantasy, and that it is safe to explore and should be for generations to come.
“There's already been material put on the moon by humans, so there's not much that can be done to really contaminate the moon. Nothing can be done to destroy our beautiful moon,” Noah said.
Moon Express expects to launch sometime in 2017. The estimated cost is anywhere from $5 million to $10 million, which scientists say is a small price given the Google prize money and the valuable minerals that could be brought back.