>Approval of a formal launch license for the second half of 2017 is still months away, and the proposed mission poses huge technical obstacles for Moon Express, including the fact that the rocket it wants to use hasn’t yet flown.

>But the project’s proponents have considered federal clearance of the suitcase-size MX-1 lander and its payload as well as approval of a planned two-week operation on the Moon itself to pose the most significant legal challenges to the mission.

>After months of lobbying by Moon Express officials and high-level deliberations among various federal agencies led by the White House science office, the people familiar with the matter said, the company appears close to obtaining what it has called “mission approval.” Until recently, Moon Express faced a regulatory Catch-22 because there was no template for getting Washington’s blessing for what it proposed.

>Official action coordinated through the Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates U.S. rocket launches and is responsible for traditional payload reviews, could come as soon as the next few weeks, these people said.
...

>An FAA spokesman said the agency “is currently working through the interagency process to ensure a mechanism is in place that permits emerging commercial space operations” such as Moon Express. But the agency declined to elaborateuntil “this process has concluded.”

>Bob Richards, chief executive and a founder of Moon Express, said over the weekend that “we’ve become a regulatory pathfinder out of necessity,” because in the past “only governments have undertaken space missions beyond Earth orbit.” He added that the company “is eagerly awaiting a determination” on its mission-approval request.

>Based in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Moon Express, which has 40 employees, was co-founded by Naveen Jain, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and philanthropist, and Mr. Richards, along with another longtime space expert, Barney Pell, a former NASA scientist. Mr. Richards also is a founder of International Space University, a private institution that trains space scientists and which has a central campus in Strasbourg, France.

>From the beginning, Moon Express’s goal was to conduct robotic missions able to carry scientific payloads and scale up to commercial operations.

>The company is among those competing for the Google Lunar X Prize, which offers a first prize of $20 million for the first privately funded team that develops a spacecraft to land on the Moon, traverse its surface and transmit photos and videos.
...

>Moon Express’s lander is slated to be blasted into orbit from a remote New Zealand site by a 52-foot Electron rocket manufactured by Rocket Lab Ltd. Onboard thrusters are supposed to propel the spacecraft, carrying a space telescope and equipment for other experiments, further from the Earth and down to the Moon’s surface in a matter of days or weeks.

>Though the plan has drawn little attention outside the commercial space industry, it is being closely monitored by aerospace companies and entrepreneurs mulling investments in the nascent commercial space industry.

>Under decades-old treaties, the U.S. and other countries are responsible for “continuing supervision” of both government and commercial payloads. Such responsibilities are largely formalities when they focus on satellites headed for typical orbits around the Earth, or spacecraft controlled by the Pentagon, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration or other federal entities. So far, the government has sent probes to the Moon, Mars and other planets.

>But the proposed Moon Express mission is more complex, raising new questions about international treaty obligations and protection of heavenly bodies.

>The new procedure features a more detailed, governmentwide review of what such payloads include, and whether their contents or expected trajectories pose contamination or other threats prohibited by treaty provisions. According to the FAA, a company such as Moon Express “may voluntarily request an FAA review of its payload” to determine if it poses “any significant public safety, national security, or foreign policy concerns.”
...

>“With the emergence of new private players, it’s important to show some regulatory predictability,” according to Scott Pace, a former senior NASA official who teaches at George Washington University.

>Moon Express illustrates how dramatically costs to build and launch small spacecraft are falling. When the company was formed around the beginning of the decade, it projected a moon mission would cost roughly $50 million. Today, company officials project a price tag of around half that amount.

>The government is expected to use the same process to vet private attempts to fly deeper into space, including billionaire Elon Musk’s plan to send an unmanned spacecraft to Mars in 2018. Officials of SpaceX, as Mr. Musk’s company is called, are engaged in similar governmentwide discussions in advance of seeking a launch license.

>A SpaceX spokesman on Sunday said, “we take planetary protection very seriously,” adding the company is working with federal officials to ensure compliance with space treaty obligations.

>Eventually, space scientists and aerospace-industry leaders expect congressional action will be required to spell out new review procedures reducing industry uncertainty.

>But until that occurs, Moon Express is expected to set the standard for how the FAA, State Department and other federal agencies review private launches aiming to escape the Earth’s gravitational pull.
...

>The FAA, meanwhile, may be in line to get more responsibility regarding satellite collision-avoidance and new procedures to avoid conflicts between space launches and airplanes.

>The discussions come amid escalating global interest in deep-space ventures. Last last Friday, Luxembourg announced details of its plans to establish regulations, and invest some $230 million of taxpayer money, to promote commercial-space projects, such as asteroid mining.

>Deputy Prime Minister Étienne Schneider said his country plans to coordinate with the U.S. and other governments, and is aware of its oversight obligations under space treaties. Projects under consideration by Luxembourg, however, most likely won’t require a launch license for several years.

Neat

I wonder if I can go see the launch, I've always wanted to see one but this is the first that's local

>>48336
>Not manned

Don't care.

>>48439
>Not manned
>Don't care
What's wrong with you?

>>48481
Well a man set foot on the Moon over 50 years ago, why is sending a toaster there today anything of note? You are supposed to climb higher, not regress to nothing.

Do you get excited every time a satellite gets launched or is it simply mundane these days?

Even a manned moon landing would be mundane as it was already done over half a century ago.

What is wrong with you being excited by that?

>>48514
That you think the moon is worthless speaks volumes. There is literally gold in those hills. On top of that: rare earths, the raw materials for sustaining a mining colony, the raw materials for refueling hydrogen and oxygen fuel based spaccecraft, and He3.

Humans will be going back to the moon to stay this time. (albeit most likely not Americans) Now that the UN has clarified the Space Treaty from the 60s, the Indians and the Chinese have big plans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_the_Moon#Proposed_Missions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_the_Moon#Manned_missions

>>48481
It's easy as fuck to send probes places. Call me when they figure out how to put a man on Mars and bring them back with the same vehicle.

>>48517
What in the fuck are you even going on about? What does the mineral deposits of the body have to do with regressing in our launch capacity to lower than it was half a century ago?

>>48589
The US doesn't have any national launch capacity beyond SpaceX, not even 1960s level. NASA thinks is stuck in Hollywood mode and only has plans to send Matt Damon to Mars. Meanwhile, every other major spacefaring power from The ESA to The Japanese to India is deciding on how to carve up The Moon among themselves for the precious resources there which would return whatever investment is put into it ten-fold.

>>48587
>>48514
ITT: scientific illiteracy

>>48593
>NASA
That is the fault of congress, not NASA. Just like congress and the military fucked up the shuttle, congress and the military demand a lot from NASA while giving it less money. only now is NASA again close to the funding levels it had during the Apollo era, and in general it is doing a lot more spread out over tons of different projects

also, putting 2 people at a time on the surface of the moon was great and an important step, but if you don't think having a place in orbit where people have lived continuously for more than 15 years is important too you're not thinking clearly

>carving up the red planet
don't fall for the mars colony meme, the real space territory that will be important will be the moon and the asteroid belt, and the most practical way to access those resources is not from a hard to reach and leave gravity well like mars, but from space colonies at Lagrange Points

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Frontier:_Human_Colonies_in_Space

>>48594
Your post being a shining example of such.