Golden Spike announce Phase A for commercial lunar landing missions

[Chris Bergin]

Tried phoning the number, could be me, but it's not happening (or 50 people are already on it). If I get it to work, I'll do some transcribing. If not, look out for someone like Jeff F to be tweeting stuff.

[cro-magnon gramps]

regarding the money aspect, don't look to close at the final bill, of 7 to 8 billion dollars, that is going to be misleading...
   think in terms of phased planning, as in 200-400 million per year in development costs over 8 years to put together the lander and suits, and bring together the LV/Centaur and the various companies involved for the initial test launches.
    then the further phasing of launching customers to the Moon...
    which brings me to another point. As with the NASA CCargo to ISS, it is possible that the companies that join as part of GS and no customers, may be willing or required to have some skin in the game. it seems unreasonable to me at the moment that GS would be taking on full responsibility for development of systems architecture.
    the last point, "oooooooooooooooooooooh, it looks like a puppy dog!!!!" scream when I first saw the lander  Thanks Chris, positively NOT Battlestar material

Gramps

[yg1968]

The Press Conference starts in 15 minutes:
http://press.org/events/golden-spike-company-debut

Does anyone know if it will be webcasted?

Chris said no.  But I hope it is at least recorded and uploaded later.

I imagine that the press conference will be posted here a day or two later:
http://press.org/news-multimedia/video

And also here:
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-5Sq_Q2eY93G9qt8GyylTw/videos?view=0

[mrmandias]

The "national prestige" portion confuses me.  How does hiring someone to provide your country with a service gain you "national prestige"?

On an individual level, most 'prestige' isn't displays of how much you can accomplish, but how much you can spend.

Perhaps that's true on a national level too.

[Chris Bergin]

Alan Boyle's article (also working to the embargo rules it seems

http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/06/15731458-golden-spike-space-venture-wants-to-fly-you-to-the-moon-for-14-billion?lite

[Chris Bergin]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

GOLDEN SPIKE COMPANY ANNOUNCES THE FIRST COMMERCIAL HUMAN EXPEDITION TO THE SURFACE OF THE MOON

 

WASHINGTON – December 6, 2012 – Paragon Space Development Corporation (Paragon) was represented today at the National Press Club in Washington DC for the Golden Spike Company announcement of its intention to provide human expeditions to the Moon on a commercial basis.

 

Paragon, of Tucson, AZ, is working with Golden Spike to design and provide the space suit systems for lunar surface operations as well as the environmental control and life support systems for the transit spacecraft and lunar lander. The space suit, thermal control and life support technologies will be a mix of systems developed by NASA and industry, providing a safe, robust and low cost, commercial solution for Golden Spike Company. 

 

"Golden Spike is an example of the inflection that we are beginning to see in the commercial human space flight industry.” said Taber MacCallum, Chief Executive Officer of Paragon and a Board Member of Golden Spike Company.

 

“NASA is tackling the very important and difficult challenges of human deep space exploration by developing systems including the Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System. The capabilities being developed by Golden Spike compliment NASA’s deep space exploration program.” said MacCallum.

 

ABOUT GOLDEN SPIKE: The Golden Spike Company (GSC) is a US-based commercial space company incorporated in 2010 with the objective of providing human expeditions to the Moon. It is named after the ceremonial final spike that joined the rails of the First Transcontinental Railroad across the United States, on May 10, 1869, and opened up the frontier to new opportunities. Similarly, Golden Spike intends to break new ground and create an enduring link to the next frontier, providing regular and reliable expeditions to the Moon at prices that create a new market for space commercialization and inspire millions.

 

ABOUT PARAGON: Paragon Space Development Corporation® joins the engineering disciplines of environmental control, life support, and thermal control to provide premier products and services for our world’s most challenging life support needs, such as human spaceflight and first responder personal protection. Founded in 1993, Paragon is a woman-owned small business headquartered in Tucson, Arizona.

[Chris Bergin]

TPIS - via Andrew.

[DLR]

I think they're betting on NASA as the main customer. If they demonstrate a low-cost US-based lunar transportation system, the agency would probably come under immense politial pressure to use it to send its astronauts to the Lunar surface. If Golden Spike demonstrate the key components of their architecture before 2020, this could essentially lead to SLS being axed in favour of NASA astronauts riding commercial rockets to whatever destination they are told by Congress to go to ...

[simonbp]

Jeff Foust has good live tweeting of the presser:

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust

[Chris Bergin]

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

[Rocket Science]

Jeff Foust has good live tweeting of the presser:

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust

Thanks Simon and kudos to Jeff for the tweets. GS gets a FAIL on mass communications for something so EPIC... Sorry to have to say that to some of our friends on here...

[Robert Thompson]

The "national prestige" portion confuses me.  How does hiring someone to provide your country with a service gain you "national prestige"?

On an individual level, most 'prestige' isn't displays of how much you can accomplish, but how much you can spend.

Perhaps that's true on a national level too.

Costly signalling.

[Mongo62]

Thanks Simon and kudos to Jeff for the tweets. GS gets a FAIL on mass communications for something so EPIC... Sorry to have to say that to some of our friends on here...

I have to agree with this.  It's almost as if they don't want the general public to learn directly about their plans.  How hard would it have been to arrange for a live webcast of the press briefing?

[Garrett]

GS gets a FAIL on mass communications for something so EPIC... .

Something tells me this "fail" on mass communicating is on purpose. Too many disappointments in the past with companies promising timelines that they never kept. There's probably no point in getting the general public too excited until astronauts are actually  flying.

[Chris Bergin]

They will need to raise 100s of millions of dollars on top of advanced sales.

[Chris Bergin]

Big "admiration" for NASA noted in closing remarks.

[Tea Party Space Czar]

ULA is involved in this - very excited to see this.

http://boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/GSC-Officers_Advisors_Partners.pdf

Respectfully,
Andrew Gasser
TEA Party in Space

[Robert Thompson]

Big "admiration" for NASA noted in closing remarks.

Jeff Foust tweet: "Stern: this would not be possible without our current forward-looking space policy." 

[Chris Bergin]

Question time. Could be tasty.

AP open with a question about costs/funding. "Still be in the read after numerous flights. How does this work? Who would give you money for this or take you seriously." Ouch.

Alan: We've been over this careful. We're not going to tell you what our costs are. We expect media revenue that of the Olympics for this. Naming rights on the hardware. Merchandising. This can be a money making business. Did a market study. 15-25 nations interested out there.

[DLR]

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.