When I was deciding on a category to select for this glorious bit of news my cursor flickered momentarily over the ‘Science Fiction’ section because this item has ‘Heinlein’ written all over it.
Except that it’s true. An American company has been given the go-ahead by the Federal Government to launch the first private moon landing:
“TransOrbital of California has become the first private company in the history of spaceflight to gain approval from the US authorities to explore, photograph and land on the moon.”
I can hear the sound of rusty, iron floodgates opening.
“Several other private companies are pursuing Moon missions. LunaCorp of Virginia also wants to put a satellite into lunar orbit in 2003.”
And the seductive fizz of genies escaping from bottles.
“The Moon is ripe for commercial development,” said Dennis Laurie, of TransOrbital.”
That’s what we want to see; the commercial development of the moon and the whole solar system beyond. ‘Would you like fries with your McVenus, sir?’. Next stop: the stars!
Who knows, maybe, one day, it will even spread to Europe?
The only mistake they made was asking permission.
David missed the hook in this story, which is the fact that this industry isn’t even off the ground and the feds already have their sloth-like regulatory claws in it:
“The US State Department and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have granted it permission to send its TrailBlazer spacecraft into lunar orbit.”
“Winning permission took TransOrbital more than two years. To get federal blessing it had to prove the Trailblazer satellite would not contaminate the Moon with biological material, pollute the lunar surface or disturb previous landing sites.”
Who cares if they disturb previous landing sites? Take a fresh battery and use the lunar rover; it’s not like it’s doing us any good down here.
What I don’t understand is WHY a private company needs NOAA or other government agency approval to go to or send things to the moon. Didn’t we long ago agree that no country could claim ownership of the moon? So if no one owns it, why do they have to ask to visit it?
I appreciate the irony of TransOrbital having to apply for ‘licence’ but they probably judged (rightly) that had they attempted to launch without some official sanction they would have been stopped. One has to deal with the world as it is and not as we would like it to be.
Notwithstanding the government ‘blessing’ it is still a very exciting development and I stand by my claim that it does usher in a new era in privatised commercial space exploration
Never fear David, for my company is, like Transorbital, a member of the Artemis Project. I’ll talk to a couple of the TO guys and see if they want to drop in with a comment or two.
No one seems to be on line right now, but I’ve left a message. And btw, one of the key members of the Transorbital team is a Brit named Richard Perry… who lives in England. Hopefully he’ll find time to drop in and say hello. Ad Astra – D. Amon
It seems odd that they would be worried about disturbing the landing sites. The Lunar surface has an area equal to that of Africa. Hitting an Apollo Landingsite would be like accidentally hitting Gadaffi’s tent.
Dale, thankyou for that. It would be marvelous to actually hear from one of these guys
a minor nit if you will, as one of the TO folks we really did not “exactly” ask permission to land on the moon, what we needed was an “export permit” and to get that we had to promise certain items, and as for NOAA they in effect control the rights to take photos of the earth and downlink em.
the real issue of course was. “exporting” the spacecraft, without the documents no rocket owner would talk to us, no export permit = build your own rocket. also if we did not get NOAA they theoretically could block the radio frequencies or prevent the sale in the USA of images that included the earth in them.
so sometimes it is better to pay the beast than to fight the beast, remember the beast only plays by his rules.
To clarify the issue:
In synopsis, two licenses are required:
1) The remote-sensing permit from NOAA assures that we act in accordance with international treaties in regard to the imaging. For instance, we have to make images of Earth available to any government imaged for a reasonable fee. NOAA also inspects for compliance with other things, like the Outer Space Treaty (especially with regards to space debris control). They were particularly interested in how we planned on disposing of the spacecraft at the end of the mission (namely: well away from any Apollo, Lunakhod or other probe sites).
see http://www.licensing.noaa.gov/
2) The export permit from the State Department lets us ship the spacecraft to Baikonur for launch. State does a rather meticulous inspection of the company’s methods for handling technology security in order to avoid illegal technology transfer. This is the license that people always seem to underestimate the time required for.
see http://www.pmdtc.org
BTW, if you really want to strike a blow for capitalism and support the effort, drop by our website at http://www.transorbital.net and purchase a Lunar Time Capsule entry! Put “Samizdata.net” in the “affiliates” slot and I’ll throw in a copy of Saturn Press’ “Rockets of the World” poster.
Paul Blase
Hi,
I’m a programmer and computer graphics artist who works for TransOrbital; basic design, conceptual drafts, spacecraft models, animations, all sorts of things. I agree that the regulatory side of things is a pain, but we’re not in a position to change the rules so we have to play by them.
Someone mentioned resurrecting a lunar rover. Even if we could replace the batteries, the chances of things working are pretty slim. Bearings will long since have vaccum welded, lubricants evaporated, plastics deteriorated and so forth. It’s going nowhere. It’s been a long time since mankind went
to the moon.
But messing with historical sites and artifacts is not what we’re all about. In fact some of us have very strong views on
the preservation of our heritage. Better to make history than break it.
Vik :v)