Silicon Valley start-up looking to mine the moon

[Acee22 Profile]

The business and culture of our digital lives,
from the L.A. Times

April 8, 2011

First, man landed on the moon. The next step might be mining it for minerals.

At least, that’s the business plan for Moon Express Inc., or MoonEx, a Silicon Valley start-up MoonEx_USA_Brand building robotic rovers capable of scouring the lunar surface for precious metals and rare metallic elements. The company joins a growing group of entrepreneurs in the private space race.

The private company is building its hardware alongside scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center northwest of San Jose. It was co-founded by Naveen Jain, who made a fortune off his previous start-up InfoSpace Inc.; Barney Pell, the head architect behind Microsoft Corp.'s Bing Internet search engine; and Robert Richards, a commercial space entrepreneur.

From my article in Friday’s Times:

MoonEx's machines are designed to look for materials that are scarce on Earth but found in everything from a Toyota Prius car battery to guidance systems on cruise missiles.

While there's no guarantee the moon is flush with these materials, MoonEx officials think it may be a "gold mine" of so-called rare earth elements.

"From an entrepreneur's perspective, the moon has never truly been explored," said Naveen Jain, chairman and company co-founder. "We think it could hold resources that benefit Earth and all humanity."
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technol ... ravel.html

[Scoundrel1975 Profile]

Lets rape the Earth for all its got at any cost and when we're done with that lets venture out and ruin everything else in our reach, not amused.....

[Alexeindhovennl Profile]

Good thing that the private space race is developing because if the government doesn't give the truth about what's beyond earth's atmosphere people will find it out themselves