Private Moon Landing in the works?

[Warren Platts]

Except for the fact that that company also operated out of Boulder CO.

Nice try.  However:

(1) It is very unlikely that any of their prospective clients will be from Boulder.
(2) I would hazard a guess that even in Boulder the vast majority have never heard of said mining company.
(3) Even Mr Google does not appear to have any recollection of such a company in Colorado...

I agree sir, that it's a slender reed indeed. Stern would pretty much have to be a local history buff for him to be aware of it. Here is the link I found:

http://boards.ancestry.com/localities.northam.usa.states.colorado.counties.boulder/1696/mb.ashx?pnt=1

On the other hand, there is still go4Mars's suggetion that "Golden Spike" could also be a sly reference to UV spectra that correspond to gold's signature. After all, it was S. Alan Stern's instrument that detected the gold in the first place. Thus, he's personally invested in the results. It would be a great vindication of his stewardship if it could be shown that the Au results were not pure vapor!

Thus, by having allusions to both literal gold as well to the transcontinental railroad in the same company name, it could be a subtle clue that the precious metals and rocket fuel are to be found in the same place!

[Warren Platts]

Maybe you could do a little detective work over at the Paragon facilities....

I may do this if another source occurs in addition to nasawatch.

That's what I'm sayin': you can be the second source! Just walk in the front door and start asking questions. See what they say.

Get crackin' gum shoe!

And don't take no for an answer! Keep in mind Peter Diamandis's tweet of the day:

Peter's Law #11: "'No' simply means begin again at one level higher."

 http://www.diamandis.com/peters-laws/

[RocketmanUS]

My hunch is that Golden Spike has nothing to do with mining, and everything to do with transportation.  Their name appears to be a clear refernece to the transcontinental railroad.

With a goal of manned landings, rather than unmanned vehicles, and a target date of 2020, it appears that the customers for this system will be primarily political entities rather than commercial firms.  This sounds more like an attempt to resume and continue where Apollo left off.  Many of the involved people were major players in NASA manned spaceflight.

And with only 7 years they will need to dramatically limit their scope.  Where possible, they will buy rather than develop system components.  They will take a modular building-block approach so that they can buy launches from ULA and SpaceX, rather than waiting for an HLV.  They will buy Bigelow inflatable modules that they will eventually be delivering to the lunar surface.  And their sole  focus will be development of a manned lunar lander.

Because their customers will not be profit-limited, they will not need to go with the lowest-cost route.  They will have a near-monopoly on manned lunar access, and the primary driver will be global political prestiege.

I would say that it is their first goal to set up a transportation system between Earth and the Lunar surface. The article dose say they want to establish a man-tended outpost in the long term.

They might be the future commercial bus and trucking to the moon.

Quote from: RocketmanUS on 11/18/2012 12:07 PM

    {snip}
    For crew and cargo landing on the moon they could use the
    http://www.sei.aero/eng/papers/uploads/archive/SEV-L2-Lander-Presentation_1Oct2012.pdf
    Than is without the in space stage as it only would need to go between LLO and the Lunar surface if not using an EML-2 gateway.

    Stretch the tanks length to make it a tanker for a LLO depot.

For a two week stay on the Moon the astronauts are going to need some mobility.  Use the wheeled version of the MMSEV and replace the ladder with a ramp.  An extra mass of over a ton.

SEV on the lander should stay there and be able to land up to four crew.
Have a moble SEV on the surface.

They lander would need to be bigger to handle the extra mass to land th moble SEV with crew and supplies. Better to land each item on a different sortie.

[Moe Grills]

  I might come across as grouchy, sorry, but ENOUGH!!
The arguments are starting to go in circles.
I`ve heard it all before....years ago.

Surely you remember that it has been almost 40 years since a living breathing human being last visited the lunar regions.
Since then no living breathing human has ascended higher than 700 kilometers above our planet.
Many of you weren`t even sperm and eggs when it last happened.

  It`s starting to get doubtful if ANY human being, billionaire or not,
will even flyby the moon, never mind land on it, this decade.
Certainly Obama does not want NASA to land humans on the moon this decade nor the next.
Cynical and skeptical of his space plans I am now.
I can prove my doubts. How many times have delays and delays and delays
and setbacks after setbacks affected space programs, private or government, in the last 40 years.
plenty of times, huh!

[A_M_Swallow]

{snip}
Certainly Obama does not want NASA to land humans on the moon this decade nor the next.
Cynical and skeptical of his space plans I am now.

In just over 4 years President Obama will be gone.  After that his views on space do not matter.  NASA cannot send a man to the Moon during his reign so his views on destinations are only of secondary importance.

During the next 4 years NASA and contractors can work on developing man-rated launch vehicles and LEO spacecraft.  Money and authorisation for this is being provided.  NASA could probably land a small unmanned probe on the Moon.

BLEO manned flights will have to wait for a future President, although some of the technology may be demonstrated sooner.

[Danderman]

We still have not discarded the possibility that this venture merely aims to provide a commercial solution to a desirement by NASA to explore beyond low earth orbit.

[RocketmanUS]

We still have not discarded the possibility that this venture merely aims to provide a commercial solution to a desirement by NASA to explore beyond low earth orbit.

Why limit them selve to just NASA?
Better to have more than one possible customer and or other business plan.

[Chris Bergin]

Remember folks, this is hopefully big and more sites other than us and NASAWatch are going to be digging (no pun intended) into this. You can question my accuracy on this site, as it's my site (I'll probably give you a slap though ), but if you want to question other sites, do it on their site.

[Danderman]

We still have not discarded the possibility that this venture merely aims to provide a commercial solution to a desirement by NASA to explore beyond low earth orbit.

Why limit them selve to just NASA?
Better to have more than one possible customer and or other business plan.

I am limiting my speculation to NASA as the customer because:

a) there is no other plausible customer; and

b) Occam's Razor indicates that it is NASA.

[Nelson Bridwell]

The rumors about Golden Spike sound similar to a recent editorial by Chris Kraft:

"We are wasting billions of dollars per year on SLS. There are cheaper and nearer term approaches for human space exploration that use existing launch vehicles. A multicenter NASA team has completed a study on how we can return humans to the surface of the moon in the next decade with existing launch vehicles and within the existing budget."

http://www.chron.com/opinion/outlook/article/Space-Launch-System-is-a-threat-to-JSC-Texas-jobs-3498836.php

[Warren Platts]

We still have not discarded the possibility that this venture merely aims to provide a commercial solution to a desirement by NASA to explore beyond low earth orbit.

But what's the positive evidence for that. So far, the companies that have been mentioned haven't been traditional NASA partners. Yes, SpaceX has been mentioned, but only as a supplier of launch services. They will not be the operator.

Meanwhile, the official NASA policy is to blow off the Moon right? We're going for an asteroid because no one else has been there. It's going to be a new "first". So there is no official desirement (what's the difference between a "desire" and a "desirement" anyways"?) to go to the Moon.

What's happening is a lot of rich people have always wanted to go to the Moon ever since they watched Neil Armstrong do it 50 years ago--now they're getting older, and they realize that if they want to set foot on another world, they are going to have to do it themselves. The Mars First! argument is starting to wear very thin....

 

[Warren Platts]

The rumors about Golden Spike sound similar to a recent editorial by Chris Kraft:

"We are wasting billions of dollars per year on SLS. There are cheaper and nearer term approaches for human space exploration that use existing launch vehicles. A multicenter NASA team has completed a study on how we can return humans to the surface of the moon in the next decade with existing launch vehicles and within the existing budget."

http://www.chron.com/opinion/outlook/article/Space-Launch-System-is-a-threat-to-JSC-Texas-jobs-3498836.php

heh heh Yeah, it's not going to be the best PR for NASA as an organization if a purely commercial operation that takes no $$$ from NASA gets there first...

[Nelson Bridwell]

it's not going to be the best PR for NASA as an organization if a purely commercial operation that takes no $$$ from NASA gets there first...

My guess is that this is going to initially be purely non-commercial.
As a manned Chinese lunar landing date approaches, and the geopolitical impact become more pronounced, the current empty-space-first strategy is going to feel even more vacuous.  Their business model will be exactly the same as Bigelow and ISS COTS participants.  Our tax dollars will be what will be keeping them in the black.

[Ben the Space Brit]

it's not going to be the best PR for NASA as an organization if a purely commercial operation that takes no $$$ from NASA gets there first...

My guess is that this is going to initially be purely non-commercial.
As a manned Chinese lunar landing date approaches, and the geopolitical impact become more pronounced, the current empty-space-first strategy is going to feel even more vacuous.  Their business model will be exactly the same as Bigelow and ISS COTS participants.  Our tax dollars will be what will be keeping them in the black.

I suspect that what we will see is a situation where many capabilities whose development NASA either supported or partially funded (such as commercial crew and inflatable habs) will be used.  Personally, I doubt that purely commercial funding could support more than two crewed missions (a pathfinder to EML and a single landing).

However, as Warren points out, even if the pathfinder mission alone goes ahead, it would be a terrible embarrassment for NASA because it would foster the completely inaccurate perception that NASA has been 'beaten to the Moon' by 'hobby rocketeers'.  In practice, if it were not for NASA support, it would never have happened but it would be difficult to explain this to the politicians and I suspect there would be a considerable shake-up in NASA as a result.

To me, the optimum solution for NASA would be to provide as much support (mostly in terms of technical support and information) as can be done without turning it into a NASA project.  Then, if things are going well, have a proposal ready to utilise the 'rail-road' for NASA's own purposes.  "We knew about this and helped make it happen because we knew we could use it and would happen anyway eventually" is a good argument and can currently be applied to commercial crew.

[aquanaut99]

As a manned Chinese lunar landing date approaches.

Have I missed something? Have the Chinese officially announced that they were going for a manned lunar landing while I wasn't looking? Along with a date?

If not, then your argument doesn't hold much value IMO.

At any rate, even if they decide to ultimately do it, there is no way a Chinese lunar landing could happen before 2025. And I doubt private US industry is particularly concerned about a Red Chinese Flag on the Moon, even if it happens. So the motivation behind this rumored initiative is certainly something else (and many people here can't quite see the rationale and business case yet, but that is another matter).

[Danderman]

There is no way that a commercial entity today could obtain funding from NASA to develop a lunar landing capability, based on the potential of a Chinese lunar landing someday. The government is simply not that forwarding-thinking.

It is possible that in the context of an actual Chinese lunar landing capability, the government might be motivated to do "something", but that would be many years from now. The Chinese are currently hard pressed to launch people into orbit more than once a year.

[JohnFornaro]

Have the Chinese officially announced that they were going for a manned lunar landing while I wasn't looking? Along with a date?

Yes and no.

[Warren Platts]

As a manned Chinese lunar landing date approaches.

Have I missed something? Have the Chinese officially announced that they were going for a manned lunar landing while I wasn't looking? Along with a date?

What John said.

At any rate, even if they decide to ultimately do it, there is no way a Chinese lunar landing could happen before 2025.

You could be in for a strategic surprise. China is on course to beat all GLXP participants to the surface of the Moon with a robotic probe.

And I doubt private US industry is particularly concerned about a Red Chinese Flag on the Moon, even if it happens. So the motivation behind this rumored initiative is certainly something else.

Why wouldn't they be concerned? The fact is, we can hem and haw all we want about what the OST says, but in the end, the future Lunar legal regime will be decided by whoever gets up there with the firstest and the mostest.

[aquanaut99]

Have the Chinese officially announced that they were going for a manned lunar landing while I wasn't looking? Along with a date?

Yes and no.

So I missed it? Can you provide a link where a Chinese government official makes the announcement that they intend to land a man on the moon? So far I've only seen internet speculation...

[Warren Platts]

Google is your friend...