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A Stimulating Development?: NASA Assigns $50 Million in Stimulus Funds for Commercial Orbital Passenger Service August 10, 2009

Posted by Nick Azer in : economy, Obama, Paragon, private sector, Space Shuttle, SpaceX , 1 comment so far

In an interesting economic development, NASA said today that $50 million in economic stimulus funds will be going towards developing commercial passenger service to orbit (to replace the retired Space Shuttle and to avoid pricey seats on the Russian Soyuz).

Private company SpaceX won one of two cargo contracts for the ISS back in January, and the Dragon craft they are using is designed to be modifiable to a human-passenger mode. NASA is holding a workshop this Thursday for SpaceX and other interested firms (quoted by the Reuters article as Ball Aerospace, Airborne Systems, Boeing, Tether Applications, Retro Aerospace, Emergent Space Technologies, Davidson Technologies, and Paragon Space Development Corp., many of whom appear specialized for certain systems).

Obama’s campaign space plan had hinted at this in the past—the idea of private U.S. space industry as stimulus. Frontiers do have a way of pushing economies along, so this could to be a road to developments much like the railroad projects of old. Considering the potential, Obama’s campaign plan, and certain past Obama decisions, there could be a lot more of this to come, and soon…

SpaceX's Falcon 1 Delivers RazakSAT Satellite To Orbit; First Commercial Launch July 18, 2009

Posted by Nick Azer in : private sector, SpaceX , add a comment

Leading private space company SpaceX has successfully delivered a Malaysian satellite into orbit, it’s first ever commercial launch (and second successful Falcon 1 launch into orbit).

This came along fairly quietly, but will probably prove historic—SpaceX has a huge bulk of significant future private space launches (including many of the leading Google Lunar X PRIZE efforts) lined up, and so SpaceX’s commercial launches could be deeply engraved into moon colonization history as it unfolds (much like Union Pacific’s transcontinental railroad was a integral part of the development of the American West).

Check out the neat rocket-POV video of the launch below, as well as the numerous HD pictures of the launch SpaceX has up:

MoonPop: Sam Rockwell as a Helium-3 Miner in "Moon" (2009) March 8, 2009

Posted by Nick Azer in : Helium-3, MoonPop, private sector , add a comment

It’s time for another in my running series of features on the Moon and lunar colonization in pop culture, and today’s is as related as pop culture could possibly be: the upcoming film “Moon“.

Having premiered at the 2009 Sundance Festival and slated for wide release June 12th, “Moon” stars Sam Rockwell (IMDB) as a helium-3 miner (!) stranded at his private-industry mining outpost for three years.

To have a wide summer release than even mentions helium-3, never mind is largely about it, is going to be some amazing PR for the base race.

The movie is directed by Duncan Jones, son of David Bowie; Bowie’s first big hit was, of course, Space Oddity (a previous MoonPop feature here itself).

Below is a clip from the film (via a Teaser-Trailer.com Youtube video), involving an accident Rockwell has with his helium-mining vehicle:

Keep an eye here for coverage of the film, and the impact it has as a landmark of the Moon in pop culture.

New Google Lunar X PRIZE Team Announced: SYNERGY MOON Becomes #17 March 2, 2009

Posted by Nick Azer in : Google Lunar X Prize, Lunar-direct, private sector , 2comments

A new team for the pivotal Google Lunar X PRIZE has been announced!

SYNERGY MOON, an international effort, is now the 17th official team vying for the $30 million in prizes (including the $20 million Grand Prize).

The team is a collaboration of three companies: InterPlanetary Ventures, Interorbital Systems(IOS), and the Human Synergy Project.

(Edit: Language on the team page initially made it sound like they were attempting a lunar-direct mission, and I originally had a section here about that until I then noticed mention of a “lunar lander”–which would be incongruent with lunar-direct in the classic sense as the rocket would be the lander.)

(Edit 2, 3/23: As Interorbital CEO Randa Milliron has clarified today in a comment on this post, the method is in fact the outright lunar-direct method, differing from Apollo. Which is really cool :D See the full comment).

For more details on SYNERGY MOON, check out their official Google Lunar X PRIZE team page, as well as their own official website.

President-Elect Obama names Bill Richardson (Space Commerce Supporter) U.S. Secretary of Commerce (News) December 4, 2008

Posted by Nick Azer in : Bill Richardson, Current News, Obama, private sector, Spaceport, Virgin Galactic , 1 comment so far

One small step by Barack Obama; one giant leap for the private space boom?

Today, President-Elect Barack Obama officially announced Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico as his choice for Secretary of Commerce; Richardson is an outspoken supporter of the idea of private space commerce.

Here’s a few telling quotes from Richardson on space, this first one being from a 2006 USA Today article about the spaceport he initiated construction of in New Mexico during his terms as governor (Spaceport America):

“”Richardson says he told his aides: “Go after the big one. Go after 5,000 jobs and something to be remembered for. Go after [Sir Richard] Branson and the spaceport. Politicians are known for talking about 9/11 and gloom and doom, and I like to infuse people with visions of the future and space. It’s bold and risky, but people turn on to that.”‘”
-”New Mexico goes a little pie in the sky with spaceport idea“, by Kevin Maney, USA Today

‘Infusing people with hopeful visions’ is definitely in the Obama style, and in his case, Richardson was using the private space industry’s possibilties to do that. A preview of future Obama policy, perhaps?

Next is a quote from a Space.com article by Leonard David from late November 2008 about Richardson’s space enthusiasm, as it relates to his then-rumored candidacy for the Commerce post:

“Richardson was asked about any possible post he might play in an Obama White House. The New Mexico governor played it a little coy, but said:

“Here’s what I want to be sure of … that the Obama administration is pro-commercial space … that the administration is pro-space, pro-government space, pro-commercial space,” Richardson observed.

Richardson said that “it’s in the interest of our national space industry that commercial space could properly develop … so I will be an advocate wherever I am … hopefully here, still as governor of New Mexico … you never know.”"
-”Obama Vetting Bill Richardson, Space Enthusiast” by Leonard David, Space.com

So the man who stated he will be a commercial space advocate ‘wherever he is’ and that believes in ‘infusing people with visions of future and space’ is now the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, being essentially in charge of guiding the administration’s economic policy.

For anyone interested in the development of a private space boom, this is a dream scenario, and a strong indicator that Obama is very serious about some of the things that he stated in his detailed campaign space plan:

“In achieving this vision, Obama will reach out to include international partners and to engage the private sector to amplify NASA’s reach. Obama believes that a revitalized NASA can help America maintain its innovation edge and contribute to American economic growth.”
-Barack Obama’s space plan

Just how much could the private space boom “contribute to the American economic growth”? Here’s another quote from the USA Today spaceport article which gives you an idea:

“[New Mexico] should understand this is a long-haul investment,” says space business analyst Charles Lurio. “Spaceflight is poised for explosive market growth — analogous to PCs (in the 1970s). But exactly how that growth occurs, and in what form, is as uncertain as it was for PCs in the ’70s.”

“Explosive market growth”, analogous to the now-ubiquitous PCs? That sounds like something America could use right now, and with Obama’s appointment of dedicated industry supporter Richardson, it sounds like it’s something we could be starting to see in the very near future. :)

Picture of the Week: A Mysterious Development… November 25, 2008

Posted by Nick Azer in : Lunar Development Corporation, lunar land use planning, NASA, Picture of the Week, private sector, public-private partnership, Sherlock Holmes , 3comments

This relatively unassuming rendering caught my eye when searching for something completely different (the International Lunar Network–features coming soon on that), and it was a small detail in the image that struck me, and sent me on a magical mystery tour of the web for more info:

Up on the carrier there, the label (in this NASA rendering) says:

Lunar Development Corporation.

As a 24-year-old with an Urban Planning degree, seeing such a particular phrase on a NASA rendering really got my attention. And what I’ve found has surprised me: this ‘Lunar Development Corporation’ could not only be a massive player in our colonization of the moon, but this reference on an official NASA image has proven to be highly mysterious.

A quick search on “lunar development corporation” dug up some gold (or helium-3, if you will):

Among other things, mostly odds and ends.

This became extremely strange upon finding the original source of the image; I first encountered it via a mostly unrelated ThomasNet article. Then, after some digging based on the ThomasNet description, I found the image in the Wikipedia article on Moon Colonization.

Taking the hunt to NASA itself, a search for “lunar development corporation” on their main site turned up….nothing. Hmm. I then applied my method for finding that Wikipedia repeat of the image to NASA’s new official images site, NASAImages.org, and found the image with a full (and revealing?) description.

The archived image’s original source is this page, which has the same description alongside it.

That description is potentially very revealing, by just how unrevealing it is. Nowhere is the appearance of “Lunar Development Corporation” mentioned, as the brief text talks only about the rover and cargo lander.

A search on NASA’s site for “lunar development corporation” turns up only a brief mention of “the new Houston-based Lunar Development Corporation” being listed as founded apparently by the Artemis Society‘s Gregory Bennett (a bio which does not mention this LDC in any form), and a Google or other search turns up no official site or mention of the entity in any form..

…yet it appears on the cargo lander on this official NASA image.

This may be explained by a small detail, from the end of the image’s description:

“This image was produced for NASA by John Frassanito and Associates. Technical concepts from NASA’s Planetary Projects Office (PPO), Johnson Space Center (JSC). “

Here’s the website for John Frassanito and Associates, but a search for “Planetary Projects Office” and/or alongside “Johnson Space Center” turns up…nothing (except more concept images). NASA has a plethora of official sites for its various departments, but yet this Houston space center’s “PPO” does, apparently, not.

A little more hunting at the Johnson Space Center site turns up a reference that the PPO became the “Planetary Missions and Materials Branch”, a search for which, again, fails to turn up an official site. Searching the JSC’s site brought up more odds and ends, including a newsletter (Lunar News issue number 62) from 1998, so it looks like “Planetary Mission and Materials Branch” may have been a name that was changed again, though to what, I’m not sure.

In fact, closer inspection of the original image’s page confirms it is from 1994.

So after all that adventure, it may just be an old and outdated concept. Still, the prominence of the “Lunar Development Corporation” on the rendering (and others, it turns out), combined with the dual facts that the rendering is from “technical concepts, and the lack of mention of the Corporation in the image descriptions despite it being so readily apparent in them, suggest that “Lunar Development Corporation” was an element of the technical concepts not entirely intended to be released; e.g., an innocuous leak.

I’m going to do some further investigating, sending off some emails, and I’ll post an update in the very near future about whether the Lunar Development Corporation could be something currently being worked on (as it is featured in concept images that are alongside much more current ones in the galleries). Stay tuned… :)

SpaceX Sucessfully Tests Falcon-9 Engines (News) November 24, 2008

Posted by Nick Azer in : Current News, private sector, SpaceX , add a comment

In a significant step for the private space boom, leading company SpaceX successfully test-fired their Falcon 9 craft‘s engines today:

While their current programs have their eye on low-earth orbit, long-term SpaceX is looking at trans-Lunar capabilities for their Falcon vehicle family, as is demonstrated in their Falcon Lunar Capability Guide (expect a detailed analysis of that report here at Luna C/I within the next week :) ).

SpaceX’s crafts are designed to be much more cost effective and reliable than past, government rockets, “up to a factor of ten“.

Check out SpaceX’s website–it is quite spiffy, being both very sharp graphically and stuffed full of great, accessible information; they really set a bar for space boom/base race web development. Also, check out the breathtaking Earth-to-orbit video of their historic Falcon 1 launch earlier this year, and their really, really crisp photos from that event.

Check back here later this week for that in-depth analysis of the SpaceX Falcon Lunar Capability Guide :)

What President Obama Means for Moon Colonization and Private Space Policy (Immediate Action?) November 6, 2008

Posted by Nick Azer in : Base Race, Google Lunar X Prize, Joe Biden, NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Council, Obama, Orion (craft), private sector, Soyuz , 1 comment so far

A few months back I did an in-depth analysis of Barack Obama‘s detailed space plan, but now that he is officially the President-Elect of the United States (and therefore, given the timing of his term, one of the most important figures ever in mankind’s integration and colonization of the moon; it is within his first four-year term that the Google Lunar X Prize should be won, and that Astrobotic alone has 6 lunar surface missions planned), it’s time to take a look at what change he might bring on early on in his administration.

One thing Obama’s space plan detailed that we could see forming perhaps even before he takes office, is the return of the National Aeronautics and Space Council (here’s an obviously in-progress Wiki article on it’s previous incarnations, which were from 1953-1973 and 1989-1993; beyond that, online background is lacking).

“There is currently no organizational authority in the Federal government with a sufficiently broad mandate to oversee a comprehensive and integrated strategy and policy dealing with all aspects of the government’s space- related programs, including those being managed by NASA, the Department of Defense, the National Reconnaissance Office, the Commerce Department, the Transportation Department, and other federal agencies.”
-Barack Obama’s Space Plan

The Council was a White House entity to help coordinate these sorts of agenices, something that is arguably needed more now than it was in the Space Race era, with the booming private space sector (from Armadillo and Astrobotic to Odyssey Moon and Virgin Galactic, with numerous inbetween) being around, as Obama puts it, to “amplify NASA’s reach”:

“In achieving this vision, Obama will reach out to include international partners and to engage the private sector to amplify NASA’s reach. Obama believes that a revitalized NASA can help America maintain its innovation edge and contribute to American economic growth.”
-Paragraph 3 of the Obama Space Plan

As has been much discussed, economic growth is something America could use right about now, and so having a council that strengthens coordination of private and government space efforts (something already underway, an example being the agreement between Odyssey Moon and NASA announced just last week) could in turn, strengthen the role in a recovering American economy of a thriving space sector. The council would greatly amplify the ‘amplification of NASA’s reach’.

“And that’s a major debate I’m going to want to convene when I’m president of the United States. What direction do we take the space program in?”
-Barack Obama, on a couple of occasions on the campaign trail

An interesting blog post from an Obama supporter on the official Obama site talked about the idea of a new National Space Council from a political and practical perspective:

“A National Space Council could be critical to advancing such interagency issues on climate change, space communications, technical innovation, and the commercial uses of space. …We are missing opportunities because no agency is charged with helping space industries in the way that the Federal government helped the infant aviation industry before World War II.”
-Blog post by Gary Oleson on the official Obama campaign site

His post also notes that historically, the National Space Council was chaired by the Vice President; Vice President-Elect Joe Biden was as recently as October involved directly in Obama’s space policy, as the sponsor of a waiver to allow the U.S. to buy Soyuz craft from Russia until the Orion craft is ready, something Obama spoke in favor of and then became involved with. Biden also was outspoken as a space advocate in the last days of campaign (though I’m sure Florida had something do to with that).


With Obama already starting to put his Cabinet together, we could see movement on the new National Space Council’s creation within the next few weeks and months. The space program certainly is something hopeful and inspiring that Obama could mix in with all the grim challenges, which would be politically invaluable, especially if there’s a lot of emphasis on the possibilities of lunar policy (with the Moon, of course, visible to every American on a regular basis as an impromptu symbol of hope).

Keep an eye here for frequent updates as Obama’s presidential space policy begins to take even further shape, and check out my original analysis of his space plan for more details on that.

Odyssey Moon Announces NASA Partnership (News) October 31, 2008

Posted by Nick Azer in : Current News, Google Lunar X Prize, NASA, Odyssey Moon, private sector , add a comment

Right on the heels of Astrobotic‘s big announcement of the details of their commerical missions, there’s big news out of Odyssey Moon, Ltd., another Google Lunar X Prize competitor and major private lunar venture.

Odyssey Moon put forth a media release announcing a deal between them and NASA, with Odyssey Moon paying NASA for technical support on their MoonOne (M-1) Google Lunar X Prize mission. This agreement was reached through a Reimbursable Space Act Agreement, signed at the Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. As that above link notes, the difference between a ‘reimbursable’ and a ‘non-reimbursable’ Space Act Agreement is whether or not there is a transfer of funds from the private entity (here, Odyssey Moon) to NASA, with NASA providing “data, facilities and services to the paying entity.”

An important element of the agreement is that Odyssey Moon will then “share its technical data from its engineering tests and actual lunar missions with NASA”, as the release puts it. So in exchange for getting initial support from NASA, Odyssey Moon’s operational (and efficiency, a crutch of the value of the private space sector) knowledge will be utilized by NASA it it’s own colonization efforts.

Leonard David over at LiveScience.com had the inside scoop on the agreement; check out his blog post for neat insider tidbits from his own experiences at Ames and from elsewhere.

Astrobotic Technology Announces Details Galore on Series of Commercial Moon Missions (News) October 31, 2008

Posted by Nick Azer in : Astrobotic, Current News, dozer, Google Lunar X Prize, Integration, lander, Lunar Chariot, Obama, private sector, rover, selenography, Shackleton , add a comment

Today, Astrobotic Technology (a leading contender for the Google Lunar X Prize) announced a new series of missions as part of their commercial efforts.

“Astrobotic will robotically explore the Moon’s high-interest areas on a commercial basis, collecting information required to design future outposts and to answer scientific questions about the Moon and Earth.”
-David Gump, President of Astrobotic, from their announcement

As part of the announcement, Astrobotic released a White Paper (a ‘white paper’ being an a report or guide that addresses problems and how to solve them, typically seen in business and politics) detailing their program and goals.

In addition to their initial effort for the $20 million Lunar X Prize, TranquilityTrek (which, as David Gump told Space.com for their article today, was “very clear” that it was “going to cost more to win the prize than the prize itself”), Astrobotic will follow with five more missions:

Rovers and landers are pretty commonplace ideas, but the ‘dozer‘ was a new one to me. With some digging (excuse the pun), I found an example: NASA’s Lunar Chariot prototype, which could build roads, dig trenches, or even mine minerals. There’s even some video of it in action, kicking ass and taking names on Earth:

The White Paper has oodles of details on their exact mission plans, particularly the diagram on page 3.

With the X Prize TranquilityTrek slated for Q2 2010, they’ve got their South pole scout (headed for the rim of Shackleton Crater, long considered a prime location for a moon colony) shooting for Q3 2011, with two more missions (a North Pole scout and a ‘Moon Quake 1″ seismic and weather collection mission at Shackleton) set for 2012 and an Ice Surveyor mission going deep into Shackleton itself, followed by the Lunar Dozer mission also at Shackleton Rim, both being conducted in 2013.

So, for Astrobotic alone, that’s 6 total lunar missions in the next four years. Exciting times. And this, of course (and as the White Paper notes), is just the initial slate. Most or all of the rovers will include HD video broadcasting, it sounds like, so we’ll all have a front row seat, to boot.

The general goal of the missions is to build a data library to facilitate other organizations’ (e.g., NASA; Barack Obama, in his space plan, talked of “amplifying NASA’s reach” with the private space sector) and companies’ missions with information for sale, such as detailed terrain maps, allowing future colonial efforts to simply buy the information from Astrobotic at a lower cost that it would take for the efforts to collect the data themselves.

Check out that 4-page White Paper and Astrobotic‘s site for the full skinny on their efforts, and keep an eye here for frequent updates and analysis as they (and other similar companies, such as fellow Google Lunar X Prize competitor Odyssey Moon, Ltd.) progress rapidly towards their mission slate :)