Private Company Plans To Bring Moon Rocks Back To Earth In Three Years (arstechnica.com) 66
mi writes: Moon Express, founded in 2010 to win the Google Lunar XPRIZE, says it is self-funded to begin bringing kilograms of lunar rocks back to Earth within about three years. "We absolutely intend to make these samples available globally for scientific research, and make them available to collectors as well," said Bob Richards, one of the company's founders, in an interview with Ars. From the report: "The privately held company released plans for a single, modular spacecraft that can be combined to form successively larger and more capable vehicles. Ultimately the company plans to establish a lunar outpost in 2020 and set up commercial operations on the Moon."
News... (Score:3)
Futurama already did it.
E
Re:News... (Score:4, Informative)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] a few attempts to get robotic sample return to earth from the moon.
The results got published.
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Yes, but like a woman's breast, you'll never hold a real moon rock in your hand.
And now to click anonymous so I won't get hatred.
Re: Rocks? (Score:2)
My school had one. I held it. Later, they'd come take it back. They, instead, gave us a tree - though I'd graduated by then.
I confess, I've done a lot of drugs, but I'm pretty sure I remember this properly. Pretty sure.
Re: Rocks? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Close enough. ;-)
If you want moon rocks... (Score:5, Funny)
Convince the Chinese that crushed moon rock will give them an erection.
We'll have a moon base next year
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Mine the other side, where nobody can see.
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No, don't give them any ideas. If this happens they'll play joke. They'll put moon dust in our coke.
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glad to hear that. (Score:1)
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You missed the obvious "Pet Rock" evolution. "Pet Moon Rock"
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You missed the obvious "Pet Rock" evolution. "Pet Moon Rock"
Oh that's just cruel. Everyone knows that pet moon rocks don't do well in earths gravity. I'm sure Katie Perry and Justin Beiber, along with the rest of PETA, will be happy to stone you to death so that you can be taught the error of your ways.
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Re: Great, another ecological disaster (Score:2)
Don't get it all from the same place (Score:3)
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I rocked your mothers gash last night
Go mom!
Still pulling in people like you despite all her skin diseases, lack of teeth and only one good eye.
Only two beers, too! Mom has a two-beer limit, if you're not pulling down her filthy drawers after two beers she move on to somebody else.
Rather you than me though.
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Lunar dust (Score:3)
Getting some lunar dust back as well would be nice, as nasa needs this thing to research their landers etc.. and the artificial thing is not as good.
This is fascinating (Score:1)
This is fascinating to me, not so much for what we might learn about the Moon's composition as for the economic implications of marketing "rare" Moon rocks.
Of course they're not intrinsically rare. There's enough Moon for everybody to have too much Moon. What's rare, currently, is the ability to get it there.
This leads me to some questions. If we can effectively model the supply and demand for this material, and the pricing, we might be able to use the model to determine the best way for this company (or
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This leads me to some questions. If we can effectively model the supply and demand for this material, and the pricing, we might be able to use the model to determine the best way for this company (or a cartel of companies) to constrain the supply of Moon rocks for the purpose of extracting maximum value from fools who want the prestige of owning Moon rocks.
Hush, you fool! Do you really want DeBeers in the moon rock business?
It's a crass way to fund science and exploration, but maybe it could buy us some real funding.
With corporations now in the space biz, the 'real funding' won't be for science and exploration, it will be for shareholders' lavish retirements. These days, science is funded primarily to map out the next wave of whatever exploitation seems most likely to be lucrative.
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DeBeers isn't effectively modeling the supply and demand. They're lying about the supply and making it SEEM more rare than it really is, thus duping some folks. (Which is good advertising, but not true supply/demand equalization.)
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For the same reason, I favor auctioning off naming rights to minor planetary and lunar features as a way of funding research.
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Currently moon rocks sell for about the price of gem diamonds on the open market, around $1000-$2000 a gram.
Yes, there are moon rocks available for sale right now - lunar meteorites. So there is already a price ceiling on any rocks imported from the moon.
Re: Jackin off with the American flag around my pe (Score:1)
ProTip footnote: use of Aluminium foil hats is not recommended because Alzheimer's.
I read this before. (Score:1)
I think a read a book about this already. Written by Robert Heinlein, if I recall correctly. It didn't turn out so well sending all the moon rocks to Earth. Be careful!
Build a mass driver (Score:2)
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Re:Build a mass driver (Score:4, Informative)
I'm afraid I gave away my copy of "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" to a young person who needed to learn a great deal more about the politics of Robert Heinlein and where many engineers of my generation learned much of our politics. The "Loonies", the inhabitants of Luna, had been engaging in just such an attack on Earth in a war of revolution. There was an amazing comment that there was no point in dropping rocks on Cheyenne Mountain anymore, since it was no longer _there_.
The revolutionaries were also broadcasting to Terra the exact coordinates of each rock, carefully avoiding population centers and historic monuments, and giving any remaining inhabitants time to do exactly that: to get out from under them. I took the story to heart as a model for premeditated violence.
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Heinlein's fiction is as bad a physics text as it is a sociology or economics text. This is not to disparage Heinlein, simply to point out that plot points in fiction are just plot points. All science fiction, and all fiction generally, shares this trait.
The lunar bombardment scenario has a couple of problems. The energy gain from firing something from the moon is only about 22-fold (11.2 km/sec / 2.38 km/sec)^2), so that to do any extensive damage on Earth a still enormous amount of electrical energy needs
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Oops - miscalculation: the energy gain is at best only a factor of 11, once you account for canceling the lunar orbital velocity of 1 km/sec. This assumes you are OK with the mass taking 2 weeks to fall to Earth (half the orbital period of the moon). If you want it to fall faster still more energy must be invested in it, reducing the gain even more.
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I agree that the politics and engineering in Heinlein's stories are not robust. They're fiction: they don't have to be robust, but they do need to involve challenges and obstacles for the characters, to explore the engineering, emotional, and political puzzles. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress explored at least half a dozen awkward themes, including political revolution, the role of indentured servitude and political exile in colonial politics, the differences between warfare by bombing and warfare with troops
Yay (Score:1)
Alien bacterial infection FTW!
I, for one, say: GOOD! (Score:1)
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the US Government believes all moon rocks are their property and aggressively pursue everyone who has one. SWAT teams and FBI sting operations -- for people who were *given* a tiny piece of moon rock by NASA 40 years ago.
The U.S. believes the Apollo mission rocks are government property because they are. The U.S. government paid to bring them here, and have clear legal title to them. They have never been offered for sale.
If you want to buy a moon rock though there is not problem. Lunar meteorites are available for sale (I have a small piece of one), you can order one today if you like. A micro-mount specimen isn't even very expensive.
I've seen this movie before... (Score:2)
Hell, I have plans to bring them on Tuesday. (Score:2)
I don't have any funding, or a launch vehicle, or a landing vehicle, or a return vehicle, but I have plans.
Re: Mass exchange (Score:2)