Kickstarter to Fund Lunar Mission within a Decade

November 26, 2014

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November 26, 2014 – The Kickstarter funded project is called Lunar Mission One. The plan, to put a robotic lander on the Moon at its south pole and have it drill between 20 and 100 meters (approximately 66 to 330 feet) beneath the surface. The immediate result, a study of the 4.5 billion year old rocks that initially formed both the Moon and Earth. The inevitable end in mind, the establishment of permanent lunar base.

Lunar Mission One is estimated to cost $1 billion U.S. The Kickstarter campaign set a goal of 600,000 British pounds ($1 million U.S.) and with 21 days to go has raised over 356,000 of it from more than 4,000 pledges. What do premium pledges of 60 pounds or more get, an individual memory box that will reside forever inside the borehole made by the drill. Total capacity for memory storage is expected to be tens of terabytes.

Lunar Mission One will include an instrumentation package with surface sensors deployed to study the impact of the solar wind, electromagnetic radiation and presence of micro-meteorites. Surface composition will also be studied. And inside the borehole the mission plans to place seismometers to measure earth movement as well as sensors to study the inner Moon’s chemical composition.

After the initial 600,000 pounds a second fundraising push would start in 2019. Largely a British private initiative, Lunar Mission One has the backing of lunar scientists and other academics from Oxford, University College London, University of Manchester and two former British science ministers.

The founders of the mission are convinced that once the first 600,000 pounds are raised, getting the remaining investment to hit 600 million pounds is more than doable. No governments or space agencies currently are involved although they might partner with Lunar Mission One if only to deal with the legal complications involved in private enterprise planning to drill into the Moon’s surface. Current space law covers national governments and their use of outer space.

Watch the video or visit the Kickstarter site to learn more.