Company to Offer Expeditions to the Moon

The Golden Spike Company announced on the anniversary of Apollo 17 (the US's last Apollo mission to the moon) that it would begin offering as they put it, " routine exploration expeditions to the surface of the Moon."

Using existing rocket systems  and emerging commercial-crew spacecraft,  the company  plans to market the resulting system to "nations, individuals, and corporations with lunar exploration objectives and ambitions.  Plus offer them at a fraction of the cost of any lunar expedition envisioned so far. 

Golden Spike estimates the cost for a two-person lunar surface mission will start at $1.4 billion.  Golden Spike says that this price point is very competitive as many of the countries are already spending for robotic equipment.

Boing Boing article

I was going to also include the Golden Spike web address but I received a 404 error....

Space X launches Falcon 9

Whoooooooo hooooooo talk about a great launch! Here we have Space X launching their Falcon 9 two stage rocket into Earth orbit. According to Dvice the launch from Cape Canaveral was a picture-perfect liftoff. The Falcon 9 launch vehicle carried a payload called the Dragon cargo module. The system is being built by SpaceX with a mission to deliver supplies to the international space station and bring back equipment and experiment samples to Earth. With this successful launch Space X now has a contract of 12 flights first of which is a resupply mission. The system is unique as it is largely reusable which in theory should keep the cost down. Below is the launch with a dummy payload that did make it into orbit.



ABH news article

Dvice article

Space X

Wiki on the Falcon 9 launch system

Google offering 30m to first private moon landing

BBC News reports that search giant Google is offering a $30m prize pot to private firms that land a robot rover on the Moon. To claim the cash, any craft reaching the lunar surface must perform a series of tasks such as shoot video and roam for specific distances. The top prize of $20m will be given to the private firm that soft lands a rover on the Moon which then completes a series of objectives. These include roaming the lunar surface for at least 500m and gathering a specific set of images, video and data. A prize of $5m will be given to the second firm that manages to reach the Moon with a rover that roams the surface and shoots some pictures. Google said it would give bonuses of $5m if the rovers complete other objectives such as travelling further on the Moon, taking pictures of Apollo hardware, finding water-ice and surviving the freezing lunar night.

Thanks to Shaun A. Saunders for the post

Three dead in California spaceport blast

Three people were killed and three others critically injured on Thursday July 27, 2007 - in an explosion at the California testing facilities operated by commercial spaceflight pioneer Burt Rutan.The blast occurred at the Mojave Air and Space Port, where Scaled Composites, the company formed by Rutan, was testing rocket motor components. Two people were killed instantly in the explosion at 1434 local time and four others were rushed to a local hospital. One of those died following surgery. Rutan was the first person to privately put a crewed space craft into space, collecting the XPrize with the feat.

Thanks to Shaun A. Saunders for the post