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posted by janrinok on Wednesday August 03 2016, @05:29PM   Printer-friendly
from the treaty-obligations dept.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/2/12275980/moon-express-private-mission-spaceflight-us-government

Private spaceflight company Moon Express will soon announce it has been granted regulatory approval by the US government to send a lunar lander to the surface of the Moon, according to a source familiar with the matter. If so, that means the company will be the first private company to have received permission from the government to send a vehicle beyond Earth orbit and on to another world.

Moon Express is a private spaceflight company with long-term hopes of mining the lunar surface. But in the short term, the company is focused on simply getting to the Moon first. The venture is developing the MX-1 — a 20-pound lunar lander designed to "hop" across the Moon's surface. MX-1 is in the Google Lunar X Prize competition, an international contest to send the first privately funded spacecraft to the Moon. In order to win that competition, Moon Express has to get its lander to the surface of the Moon before December 31st, 2017.

[...] Currently, there's no regulatory framework in place that allows the US government to oversee private missions beyond Earth orbit.

And that's a problem, since the US has to adhere to obligations set by the Outer Space Treaty — an international agreement that guides how nations conduct missions in space. Specifically, the US has to adequately oversee private missions to other planetary bodies, as well as ensure that companies don't violate planetary protection.


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  • (Score: 4, Touché) by takyon on Wednesday August 03 2016, @07:11PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday August 03 2016, @07:11PM (#383717) Journal

    The U.S. owns the Moon. Don't you remember that pic with the American flag?

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  • (Score: 2) by turgid on Wednesday August 03 2016, @07:17PM

    by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 03 2016, @07:17PM (#383719) Journal

    And how are they going to defend that flag? :-) Maybe Der Trumpenfuehrer will install a permanent manned (no women or Muslims or workshy reds) guard on the Moon.

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by MrGuy on Wednesday August 03 2016, @07:17PM

      by MrGuy (1007) on Wednesday August 03 2016, @07:17PM (#383720)

      We're going to build a base, and we're going to make the moon pay for it.

  • (Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday August 03 2016, @08:32PM

    by butthurt (6141) on Wednesday August 03 2016, @08:32PM (#383752) Journal

    Incorrect.

    Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.

    --https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty [wikisource.org]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @09:18PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @09:18PM (#383773)

      I think that was supposed to be ambiguous sarcasm on takyon's part.

    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday August 03 2016, @10:43PM

      by frojack (1554) on Wednesday August 03 2016, @10:43PM (#383802) Journal

      Whoosh.

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      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 04 2016, @02:02AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 04 2016, @02:02AM (#383886)

        Humour can be subtle, can't it.

      • (Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday August 04 2016, @07:40AM

        by wonkey_monkey (279) on Thursday August 04 2016, @07:40AM (#383966) Homepage

        You can't hear a whoosh on the moon.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 04 2016, @12:26PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 04 2016, @12:26PM (#384031)

    The U.S. owns the Moon. Don't you remember that pic with the American flag?

    Yeah, I remember the pictures, but they made several scales of mockups to film the event. You can go see them, they still exist, they're on display as "training" grounds. So in reality the USA laid claim to a Hollywood basement and called that "the moon". Big deal.

    Protip: When the Lunar Module lifted off the moon, what camera was filming it? The camera panned up, but there was no camera with automated tracking system left behind or even taken on that flight, supposedly. Oops. I bet you my bottom dollar that if you dismiss the claims that NASA is almost purely a propaganda company you've never actually looked into the claim yourself and just think it's a silly claim because of shit you've seen on TV or repeated by others parroting such. I bet you didn't even know that the TV stations were complaining about broadcasting the "lunar landing" because they were not allowed to receive the raw transmission from the moon and instead had to point their video cameras at a projection screen and broadcast that. Hint: Low Gravity doesn't make you move your arms and legs in slow motion. Play the video at approx 2x speed and you'll see how it could very well have been simply recorded and played back at a slower frame rate to achieve the same universal slow motion effect of "low gravity".

    You know, instead of just dismissing the fact that there was no dust kicked up from the lunar landing, and a myriad of other tell tale signs of obvious fakery, if you actually just looked into the BS you've been sold and stopped trusting authority figures just because they claim to be authority figures, you might actually stop believing in Santa Claus and most of NASA too. Then you'll finally become a rational human being. The alternative is to admit: "I don't really know if we went to the moon, because I haven't investigated the proof and counter evidence." A true scientist isn't afraid to admit they don't know something.