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After discussing the Google Lunar Challenge in my last two articles I thought it would be interesting to delve deeper into the commercial development of the moon. The main question is: How do we extend business past the earths sphere of influence to the moon?


To help answer this question I studied the Age of Discovery. The Age of Discovery was all about searching for trading partners, but what it turned into was colonization and searching for valuable materials. Gold fueled the Age of Discovery and was incredibly profitable, but there was a huge upfront cost. For example Columbus’s discovery of the New World was a complete bust in terms of profits, but that initial investment fueled further investment that created a huge profitable gold mining industry. While its impossible for the moon to contain gold, it can harbor a more valuable resource.

In the 21st century profits drive expansion, so we need to find profit in returning to the moon. For example the Lunar Challenge provides companies with a way of earning profit. The companies participating currently utilize the business model of exploration and sale of valuable lunar information. The presence of PGM’s (Platinum Group metals) has long been speculated on the moon but a discovery made by one of the Lunar Challenge companies may act as a catalyst for moon development and cause an explosion of space commerce.

The platinum found on the moon would be a result of impacting meteors. It has also been speculated that because of the moons gravity and its lack of atmosphere, the moon could harbor a significant source of PGM’s(http://www.thespacereview.com/article/205/1).The initial upfront cost of developing moon mining operations would be huge, but the rewards would be great, not only for the mined resources but also for space travel and the development of space commerce.

The moon is already an abundant source of rocket fuel. The rocket fuel could be made on the moon and shipped to gas stations in LEO(low earth orbit), cutting the amount of fuel carried by ships in half, because it takes so much energy to lift the remaining fuel past GEO(greater earth orbit). Sales of the Rocket fuel would push space travel even farther bringing us closer to presence on mars, which is of course NASA’s ultimate goal.

Space commerce today exists in the form of satellite communications and the newly blossoming space tourism. Hopefully by the time space tourism is developing we can have a lunar base and gas station developed in order send tourists to the moon resulting in even greater profits and a bustling space community.

As part of my Lunar Challenge Spotlight I’m adding another team team to the ranks, Odyssey moon.

Odyssey moon is an international team based in the Isle of man was the first to sign up for the Google lunar Challenge.  This team reflects a well organized corporation and offers a solid business plan, while broad the plan does a good job of formulating a vision for future moon development. They have one of the best websites I’ve seen a team create yet, but with international funding I would hope their pockets would be deep enough to spend a few bucks on a good website. Odyssey moon may be the most organized teams in the Lunar Challenge and with a well defined chain of command in mission critical areas it looks on paper to be a team of choice for the execution portion of the contest. The execution will play a much bigger role in the Lunar Challenge than that of  the Ansari X Prize was. Because  the moon will require a greater deal of resources. The mission will take much longer than one day and with a small team commanding such an expedition would result in overlooked mission critical problems. As I discussed above Odyssey Moon has a vision for the development of a lunar base, and to help them execute the plan Paragon.

One of Oydssey moons partners, Paragon, plans to work with Odyssy to create the first generation of plants to grow on the moon, in glass chambers. Properly named project greenhouse, the mission is important for developing long lasting lunar bases. Although we may be a long way from it Odyssey moon says they will establish moon bases by the year 2020, while I believe that timetable is a bit shunrealistic, with the ambition of corporations behind space development, we may progress faster than any country can alone.  For Example NASA recently pushed back their timetable for their new series of rockets. Giving the Chinese that an even greater chances of reaching the moon before we return. With decreased funding  We cahave to rely on the ambition of corporations to lead us to the moon before China.

While NASA is commemorating 40 years of wasted time, private space companies bound for the moon are preparing for the next major breakthrough.  The private sector, fed up with the funding that space exploration has received, have pooled resources for the Google Lunar Xprize.  As a follow up to my first Article on the Lunar X Prize Contest , I will be taking a look at two out of the nineteen teams competing for the $20 million USD. Romanian based team ARCA and US based team Astrobotic.

ARCA (Aeronautics and Cosmonautics Romanian Association) is one of the few teams that has the ability to launch their own robotics into space.  Every other competitor is relying on outside launch capability mostly SpaceX to boost their payloads to the moon. ARCA plans to launch their balloon like moon rover from a solar powered balloon that will be 15km above the earths surface. This is expected to cut their launch costs, but create headaches for orbital calculations on getting to the moon.


Astrobotic plans to begin their exploration of the moon and claim the Lunar X prize as soon as 2011. They will begin their exploration of the moon by landing at the Apollo 11 site during the contest thus claiming an extra $5 million in prize dollars. Future missions Astrobotic plans to explore the poles and areas with persistent sunlight.

Astrobotic is not new to building robots for extreme environments.  They’ve sent rovers to earths poles the most inhospitable deserts, and abandoned mine shafts. Now they’ve decided to expand their business to the moon. Astrobotics’s business plan, for the moon, consists of scouting the surface of the moon for high interest areas for commercialization.  Exploration of polar regions for liquid ice and areas with persistent sunlight will be among the first high interest areas.  With information about these sites future colonization efforts will be able to make much more detailed lunar base blueprints.

ARCA is the first team that will attempt to take the Google’s Lunar X prize.  They plan to launch as soon as 2010. Personally I would like to see ARCA succeed in their plan, but their lack of a long term business plan makes me less inclined to cheer for them. ARCA definitly seem like the underdogs in the media’s light, but the fact that they run their own time schedule and not that of SpaceX they have a much higher chance of winning the XPrize. Although the media neglects ARCA support is high for them among online forums. One thing is for sure starting 2010 there will be no shortage of excitment about the moon.

Hollywood movies always display glamorous space Crafts that can land freely on a planet and take off and go straight into space. However NASA and every other space agency has from the dawn of space travel only used rockets. Can rockets really be the best method for space travel? The movies may have it more right than wrong in this situation but lets take a closer look.

You may be thinking to yourself what can this guy possibly be saying? We cant build spacecrafts that take off from the ground and fly straight into space. Well your right we cant… yet, but we are close. Virgin Galactic’s spaceship one has made it into space without the use of huge rockets and massive amounts of fuel, Here’s how it works. White Knight (carrier plane) takes off from a runway like a normal plane while carrying spaceship one. When the White Knight reaches a certain altitude it then detaches spaceship one to boosts off into space. More advancements in this area may reveal spaceships that can take off from a runway or even like a harrier jet! While this seems like a good method of travel why are so many companies using spaceships and more using rockets? For example XCor and SpaceX prefer rocket launches as opposed to space crafts and Virgin Galactic chooses to use a space craft. Whether its an issue of money or safety this branch off deserves a deeper look.

Lets explore the differences between a space rocket and a space craft(for these examples we will be using spaceship one as an example since its the only working space craft in existence). Rockets take off vertically and get to space much quicker, although they use more fuel. Rockets are not reusable and create a ton of garbage from detaching fuel tanks and rockets. Space Ship one uses a lot less fuel but it does take a lot longer to get to space, where a rocket takes minutes spaceship one takes hours. Spaceship one currently takes more technical preparedness because of the new technology, while rockets have almost become routine. Overall I think space crafts are the better choice in the long term compared to the dated rocket launches, While rockets may offer safety and speed they are an hindrance to our continued exploration of space.

For those of you who wish to express your view on rocket vs space craft please leave a comment and don’t forget to subscribe to the RSS feed and get continued updates in the corporate world of space.

This is it kids the main event for everything business related about space. The Space Frontier Foundation Conference will bring together experts in engineering, science and business to help advance new space. The focus is to make space travel cheaper and more reliable.

On Sunday will be the business plan competition where a series of teams will present business plans to a panel for review. The winning teams will get prize money up to $5,000 a nice incentive for aspiring students but pocket change for any real space company. As of right now it is unknown whether these plans will remain secret but hopefully we can get a sneak peak of what aspiring space entrepreneurs are planning and what the rest of us are up against.

Believe it or not the first space tourism company is not American. In fact its not even a company! Russia has a long standing reputation for promoting space tourism.

Russia’s economy may be the reason for the first space tourists. While NASA is against space tourism at this time, Russia needs the money and will send anyone willing to pay into space on one of their Soyuz rockets. The first space tourists were businessmen from various country’s offering to pay boatloads of money to rocket their way to the stars.

Russia may have started space tourism, but they may need to step it up in order to stay in business. Like many companies today facing competition, having the ability alone may not be enough to compete in the new space tourism industry.

Thanks to the Ansari X prize space tourism is blossoming into a full fledged industry taking hold in the 21st century. The winners of the Ansari X prize, Scaled Composites tout their ship Spaceship One as the ultimate reusable spacecraft. Virgin Galactic took the lead in space tourism by purchasing Spaceship One as their method to boost tourists into space.

Not only will Russia have to compete with different companies but many sovereign nations have plans to boost their space presence such as India and China. China’s Taikonauts may not be space tourists but its only a matter of time before wealthy Chinese business owners pay top dollar for a ticket to space. Russia has some catching up to do if it hopes to stay in business.

Space transportation company SpaceX boasts its first successful commercial launch on July 13. Space X with founder Elon Musk, the mastermind behind Paypal, launched a Malaysian satellite named RasakSat into orbit late Monday night. The Launch went off without any problems and proved that private space corporation can succeed in Space travel and make a tidy profit.

SpaceX’s Falcon launch vehicles are designed for earth orbit and inter planetary missions and offer much lower costs with higher reliability than previous launch vehicles. The bureaucracy of NASA launches and unreliability of Russian launches prove that SpaceX is the vehicle of choice for future space businesses to rocket to the stars.

SpaceX was among 3 companies that recently won a contract from NASA to ferry equipment to the international space station. At this time SpaceX is the only one of these companies that has successfully completed a commercial space flight, putting them in a great spot for landing future contracts. Currently NASA has plans to use Russia for human transport to the space station during the interim of the space shuttle retirement and NASA’s new model Ares and Orion. However with SpaceX’s success NASA may have a new choice. SpaceX is currently testing their Dragon spacecraft which will be capable of ferrying humans to the space station.
The commercial space race truly has begun.

View the RazakSat Launch here http://www.spacex.com/webcast.php

Google could be planning to colonize space by creating the first permanent network in space, in effect extending the internet from earth to the moon.   Through a business standpoint this makes perfect sense, what could be better than having a monopoly in space!  Google has long been looking for a way to defeat their rivals at Microsoft and maybe they have found their edge.


Google’s lunar Lander challenge, partnered with the X prize foundation, offers a concrete plan for entering space and landing on the moon.  The X prize foundation while possessing a  short history of success created an entirely new industry.  Support of the first challenge  included the Virgin group. The Virgin group created Virgin Galactic as a result of the first privately built reusable space craft.  Virgin Galactic’s business model was to take advantage of  the LEO(low earth orbit) tourist industry . The question is does Google have some secret business plan?

The companies competing in the lunar challenge need to have some long standing business plan in order to profit.  The prize money alone is not enough to cover the massive expenses that will be incurred.  Secretly each company is working towards their own agenda and Google may be doing the same. For example why would Google want HD video to be transmitted back to earth and how could they do this? Streaming live content through space has never been done before and may even seem impossible. However  Google may be fronting the prize money in hopes that these companies will be able to test a new form of internet in space Google has partnered with NASA with called the DTN.

NASA and Google partnered up to create the deep space internet. This passage from Nasa.gov perfectly describes the new Space internet.

“Unlike TCP/IP on Earth, the DTN does not assume a continuous end-to-end connection. In its design, if a destination path cannot be found, the data packets are not discarded. Instead, each network node keeps the information as long as necessary until it can communicate safely with another node. This store-and-forward method, similar to basketball players safely passing the ball to the player nearest the basket means information does not get lost when no immediate path to the destination exists. Eventually, the information is delivered to the end user.”

The new DTN will allow for more real time data transfer than the current DSN or Deep space network currently in place.  This will offer a huge advantage when creating and administering computer systems in space crafts, for travel to the moon and beyond.

Have you often wondered when we are going back to the moon? Just when you thought the 2nd race to the moon would be won by India or China private entities with the help of the X prize foundation have plans on going to the moon. In an effort to push the limits of space travel Google and Northrup Grumman have teamed up for this 2nd X prize contest.  The contest will feature private companies striving for a grand prize of $20 million USD.

Teams will be expected to soft land on the moon and transmit HD video of the surrounding terrain.  Additionally bonus prizes will be awarded to teams that can discover NASA artifacts or even frozen ice at the lunar poles.

The first X prize contest aimed at creating reusable spacecraft in order make space travel cheaper.  The Lunar challenge however has a much larger scope.  The contest hopes to bring attention and interest to space travel by spurring excitement with real time video and boost support for moon colonization.

Interestingly enough the contest started around the same time that China announced its plans to land on the moon by around 2018.  Whether this is the attempt of another space race has yet to be determined.  NASA also announced their plans to go back to the moon by 2016.  Although it would seem all 3 entities are competing NASA and China don’t view the X prize contest as a competitor. However this could be the start of Corporate Space Conglomerates taking hold of space and vying for more power while nations keep their interests planet side

The future of commercial space flight lies in the hands of SpacePort America.  SpacePort America, located in New Mexico, is currently accepting contracts from construction companies.  The contracts will be split into areas such as building the runway, upgrading the railroad nearby and constructing the hanger primarily being built for Virgin Galactic’s needs.

SpacePort America is poised to attract major business to the state.  The blossoming space tourist industry finally has a base and New Mexico could potentially be the largest private space transportation/tourist hub in the world.

California companies such as Northrup Grumman plan on moving a lot of their space operations into New Mexico to take advantage of cheap launch vehicles.  Many other Space companies such as Scaled Composites and SpaceX may be tempted to move their base of operations there as well.  Scaled Composites works closely with the Virgin Group building the Spaceship one, two, and three models for them and will better serve their client in new Mexico. SpaceX however may be reluctant to make the switch from their beautiful  launch site in the South Pacific on their private island, but competition may drive them to take cheaper alternatives.

The Aerospace industry wont be the only one benefiting from the new space tourism.  Many other sectors may jump into the mix including restaurants for those who only wish to view shuttle takeoffs from the beautiful Virgin Galactic Hanger.

SpacePort America has a long road to success and over the next 10 years they may be a major player in the industry, however this does not stop competitors, like the spaceport being constructed in Texas.  The Texas spaceport supports vertical launches but most of the major players have already devoted themselves to Space Port America.  I expect to see Space Port America to be the predominant spaceport if only because Virgin Galactic has thrown all of their support.  The Virgin group has the money to support the largest Spaceport in the World and after reading Richard Branson’s book Screw it lets do it, I believe he has no desire to wane support for it.