A commercial space company founded by an Indian billionaire and three others is all set to take man’s space missions back to the surface of our Moon.
Image courtesy: thewii.org
The private company named ‘Moon Express’ – founded by the billionaire entrepreneur Naveen Jain, computer scientist Barney Pell, and space futurist Bob Richards – has become the first of its kind to get the US government’s nod to land a spacecraft on the Moon.
According to reports the company could materialize the project as early as next year.
“With this landmark ruling, Moon Express has become the first private company approved to literally go out of this world as a pioneer of commercial space missions beyond Earth orbit,” Moon Express said in a press statement.
After the US, Chinese and USSR federal space agencies, ‘Moon Express’ has joined the line to soft-land a spacecraft on the lunar soil.
Being the first private space mission venturing to the moon, the company will be entitled to make profits from whatever findings they come across on the Moon’s surface.
In the process of getting approval for the launch from the US federal agencies, the company had to vouch for; a total transparency with the government about the mission movement to and on the lunar surface, non-interference with other space missions and existing artefacts and non-contamination of the moon.
This may be the beginning of ‘Next Generation of Space Exploration’ for humankind.
