Golden Spike announce Phase A for commercial lunar landing missions

[QuantumG]

You have it backwards. There are customers, there's just no product. You make products by getting investment, and you get investment by convincing investors that there's customers.

A press release is a horrible way to tell the investors that you've found the customers.. it suggests you're trying to skip a step.. which is not really surprising, considering how much investment for commercial space has come from angels.

[Rocket Science]

Thanks guys. I was not sure where I was going with that but now I am.

You create products to take advantage of markets.

As in the money is there willing and ready at a certain price point.

Currently nobody wants a trip to the moon so why try and sell one?

Or you can create a market demand where none existed before...

[corrodedNut]

I can't help myself...

[Davinator]

You have it backwards. There are customers, there's just no product. You make products by getting investment, and you get investment by convincing investors that there's customers.

A press release is a horrible way to tell the investors that you've found the customers.. it suggests you're trying to skip a step.. which is not really surprising, considering how much investment for commercial space has come from angels.

Even SpaceX, yes, can-do-nothing-wrong Elon, nearly, very nearly folded after the third failure, even with that massive investors.

Experience, as this company has, is worth a lot more. They have a selling point to investors now.

[spectre9]

So Goldenspike can get to a price point where they can get customers?

Does that mean they have the money to develop and test their lander?

The reason I compared to Mars One is because they want to use "off the shelf" hardware. Right now it looks like they're saying they'll use ULA hardware which is the most expensive in the world.

Business case looks thin and the initial investment looks even thinner.

I recall Stratolaunch having doubts over it's business case but everybody was positive about development because the initial investment from Paul Allen was sufficient to get the job done.

[jjnodice]

When I heard George W. Bush give the Vision for Space Exploration speech in 2004 and he said words to the effect that the program would move quickly with existing vehicles this type of approach is what I had in mind. 

Good luck Golden Spike!

[Chris Bergin]

Many thanks Blackstar. Pretty much the only photos I've seen of the event!

[Robert Thompson]

Thank you again. I see grim faces under pressure.

[spectre9]

I see old people which is indicative of the people that have Apollo nostalgia.

At least they're not trying to get NASA to pay for it.

I wish them the very best finding investors and customers. They're going to need both to make this work.

[simonbp]

My initial reaction isn't a good one.

"Show meeeeeee the money" I was thinking the whole time reading through while slowly realising there is none.

Why on Earth would you expect to be any different?

They are announcing it now, and if the money is there it will come. If not, it won't. This isn't some government project that has to have tax money allocated to it, it's a private start-up.

They've got nothing to prove to you or anyone else except their potential customers, and it's the customers who have the money. So, their argument now is the technical case that they can provide on the price point, not the source of the funds.

[TRS717]

Something new....Mr Stern notes they have spoken - and have interest - from some national space agencies.

I bet that includes NASA. A moon shot for 1.4 Billion $ by an US-based company, that's an offer they can't refuse without it leading to major political fallout.

Much as I'd love to believe this, as we get down the road I suspect it would require an en masse waiver of procurement regs and procedures, especially those related to redundancy and safety. Basically, many of the same regs that have hamstrung NASA's own manned program.

I do like the timing of the GS announcement however, seeing that forty years ago this evening, I was an eleven year-old standing on Cocoa Beach, watching the Apollo 17 as it lifted off. It's still one of the two most impressive sights of my life, the other being the April '72 launch of Apollo 16, which through the luck of the draw, my family was able to watch from the VIP stands.

The sensation of five F-1 engines firing 5000 yards away is not one you forget. In any case, my skeptical best wishes to the Golden Spike crew.

[simonbp]

But if you want a play-by-play, read Foust's Twitter feed. He was typing like a madman, asked a pointed question, and is usually far more even-handed than anybody I know.

Doug Messier also has good write-up via the telecon link:

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2012/12/06/golden-spike-news-conference-live-blogging/

[Rocket Science]

Thanks for the pics Dwayne and your assessment of the event...

[robertross]

I don't think they convinced anybody in the room, however. The one totally enthusiastic person there was Andy Chaikin, who was sitting next to me (who is one of the Golden Spike guys, and whom I've known since the mid-90s) and kept using his video camera to film the audience. He probably has lots of footage of my left nostril as well as me sticking my tongue out at him. Andy always has an enthusiastic grin on his face. Probably will be grinning as Nibiru crashes into Earth and kills us all.

glad I wasn't drinking (chocolate) milk - that would have been messy when I burst out laughing. Thanks for that, I needed a pick-me-up.
And thanks for the photos.

[Robert Thompson]

I don't think they convinced anybody in the room, however.

Useful. (Chaikin hosted Apollo panels and spoke here at SpaceFest in 2011 and 2012. I'd rather hear Tulinson.)

[QuantumG]

They are announcing it now, and if the money is there it will come. If not, it won't. This isn't some government project that has to have tax money allocated to it, it's a private start-up.

Space is a little different to every other startup industry.. there seems to be an inordinate amount of big announcements with no follow through. At least he press has started asking the right questions - specifically, how much money have you got?

Consider, say, the IT industry. You're a Silicon Valley startup. You've been stealth for 2 years. You come out saying you're going to take on Google, or Amazon, or some other big player. The first thing the press asks you is, how much money you got? If your answer is anything other than a dollar amount in the appropriate range with some credible evidence that you're not just making it up, those members of the press will stand up, laugh in your face, then go hit the bar.

As a result, the press stop showing up to these events unless the embargoed material includes that information, and people stop holding investor, or customer, begging press conferences. One day, hopefully, the same will happen with space.

[jcm]

Sorry to come late to the party, have been working all day. Just caught up reading Chris' article and the thread. As those who read Seth's article will have seen, I am skeptical of the business plan. I think the engineering looks good - given the money I see no reason it wouldn't work.
I see earlier in the thread some have said that countries will find it worth the money to have their flag on the moon no matter who gets it there. I just don't see that.
Even for a prestige-driven undemocratic elite, it seems to me that riding to the Moon on US technology just doesn't scratch the 'look at us, aren't we quite the superpower' itch.

I hope I'm wrong because this would be really cool.
Maybe if Nation X can brand it as 'This is a Joint Xian/American Expedition' and finesse away the lack of Xian technical involvement then it will do the trick.

I'm going to be on BBC World Service at 0510 UTC being asked about this. Expect me to remain skeptical - but what would your one 5-second soundbite be?

 - Jonathan McDowell

[RocketmanUS]

Landing pod looks like-

Cobra Flight Pods from 1980's G.I. Joe cartoons

And

Space Pods from Planet of the Apes (2001 film)


Did I miss something here?
They have no lander able to land ~10,000lb on the Lunar surface.
Looks like foot prints and flags to me. At $1.5B?
We had done more with Apollo 11.

I would think they would have started out with a lander to put ~10,000lb on the Lunar surface. Probes and other equipment. Could have a sample return with that. Less risk that crew first with non pressurized cabin or even a capsule yet that can even be sent out for an Apollo 8 style mission. Could have crew later with cargo to set up an out post when they get there.

If they can do propellent transfer in space then they could use something like the lander in this PDF ( hypergelic version ).
http://spirit.as.utexas.edu/~fiso/telecon/Schaffer_11-28-12/Schaffer_11-28-12.pdf

To me this is not much of a railroad to me.

Mars-One looks better.
Planetary Resources with phase 1 looks even better.

[Warren Platts]

Actually, I think this might be just the thing for an outfit like ISRO or JAXA. They could afford to put up a billion per year. It would allow them to not only leapfrog NASA, but also to stay ahead of the dreaded Chinese.

Granted, it would be done using a lot of American hardware. But the people who pay the bills get to say which flag flys when the first footprints in 50 years are made....

[robertross]

I'm going to be on BBC World Service at 0510 UTC being asked about this. Expect me to remain skeptical - but what would your one 5-second soundbite be?

 - Jonathan McDowell

Cool.

"Considering all that the space programs around the world have given us, from computers and cell phones to satellite communications & weather forecasting, the opportunities are there to be discovered if they can find the financial backing to get this program, literally, off the ground"