MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA — A California space startup is poised to gain government approval for the first private mission to the moon.
Moon Express, a startup from Mountain View, California, is reportedly on the verge of U.S. approval to land on the moon in 2017. The green light would pave the way for commercial ventures outside Earth’s orbit.
In October, the startup announced a contract with Rocket Lab USA for multiple lunar missions between 2017 and 2020, and has been working to clear federal approval to send its MX-1 lander to the moon. The small vehicle would deliver scientific hardware to the lunar surface.
The company hopes to be able to send a series of robotics to the moon for further exploration and the harvesting of resources.
Moon Express’ MX-1 lander consists of a solar panel, pressurant tanks and a payload deck.
The unmanned launches — three of which are firmly on the books, with the other two optional at the moment — will send the MX-1 lander into space aboard Rocket Lab’s 52.5-foot-tall (16 meters) Electron rocket. The goal is to test out the MX-1 and its systems, making sure the spacecraft can land softly on the moon, move about the lunar surface, grab samples and return them to Earth.
Moon Express is looking to discover and mine resources from the moon including platinum, titanium and other rare materials, including helium-3.
Helium-3 is a light, non-radioactive isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron, in contrast with two neutrons in common helium.
A unique aspect of helium-3 is, in nuclear fusion reactions, it produces clean energy. As opposed to nuclear fission, which splits an atom's nucleus in half, nuclear fusion combines nuclei to produce energy.
While nuclear fusion has already been tested with the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, those reactions give off the majority of their energy as unsafe radioactive neutrons.
Helium-3, on the other hand, is perfectly safe. A reaction that uses two atoms of helium-3 to create helium and two protons doesn’t produce any pollution or radioactive waste and poses no danger to surrounding areas.
Helium-3 doesn’t occur naturally on Earth, but it has been emitted from the sun for billions of years and has been accumulating on the lunar surface.
Just 2.2 pounds (one kilogram) of helium-3 combined with 1.5 pounds (0.67 kilograms) of deuterium produces 19 megawatt-years of energy. Roughly 25 tons of the stuff could power the United States for an entire year.
If Moon Express is successful, not only would the company pave way for for-profit businesses to take advantage of space resources, the startup would also be placed in a position to win the Google Lunar XPRIZE, a $30 million competition to land a privately funded robotic spacecraft on the moon by the end of 2017.
