Editor’s Note: The Space Tech Expo, which runs from May 21-23 in Long Beach, Calif., has published the following Q&A with Golden Spike President and CEO Alan Stern.
Dr Alan Stern, planetary scientist, space program executive, aerospace consultant and author, was elected to be the President and CEO of The Golden Spike Company in 2010. Golden Spike, consisting of former NASA engineers, program managers, Agency executives, and others, is a commercial space corporation planning human lunar expeditions. It made news in December 2012 with its proposal to begin launching passenger flights by 2020, costing $1.5 billion each. In this interview with Space Tech Expo, Dr Stern reveals more details about Golden Spike’s ambitions, why it chose to give crowd funding a chance, and why he believes the entertainment industry is key to the development of future space exploration…
BOULDER, CO, May 15, 2013 (Golden Spike PR) – Golden Spike, the first company planning to undertake human lunar expeditions for countries and corporations around the world, announced today that legendary astronaut and Apollo 13 Commander Jim Lovell has joined its Board of Advisors.
Capt. Lovell, a former Naval aviator and test pilot, is a recipient of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Lovell is one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon, was the first of only three people to fly to the Moon twice, and was the first person to fly in space four times.
REDONDO BEACH, Calif., May 8, 2013 (NGC PR) – Northrop Grumman Corporation has completed a feasibility study for a new commercial lunar lander for the Golden Spike Company (GSC). The study confirmed the viability of lander concepts for Golden Spike’s human lunar expedition architecture and conceived a novel new, low-mass ascent stage concept dubbed “Pumpkin.”
Andaaz TV host Sarika Batra talks about the future of space with Virgin Galactic’s George Whitesides, XCOR’s Jeff Greason, and Moon Express’ Bob Richards and Naveen Jain. And there’s a segment on UFOs.
ORLANDO, FLA. (April 22, 2013) – Earthrise Space Inc. (ESI), the parent organization of the Google Lunar XPRIZE team, Omega Envoy, is proud to announce that it has gained a new sponsor, Wrike, who is donating company-wide use of their Project Management Software to ESI. Wrike’s software will help make it easier to visualize workflow and organize tasks, freeing up precious work time that would otherwise be spent working through time-consuming traditional planning methods.
The Golden Spike Company’s Indiegogo crowd-sourcing campaign is wrapping up tomorrow night (Wednesday, April 24) at 11:59 p.m. PDT.
Golden Spike is a private business led by former NASA leaders, space scientists, and space engineers that is going to launch human expeditions to the Moon by 2020.
The company has raised about $16,000 so far, considerably short of its $240,000 goal. However, unlike other crowd-source platforms, Indiegogo gives all funds donated to the organization raising the funds. So, any contribution you can make by midnight tomorrow will count.
Artist’s conception of a Bigelow lunar habitat. (Credit: Bigelow Aerospace)
Irene Klotz at Space News has the details of a new Space Act Agreement between NASA and Bigelow Aerospace to study missions beyond low Earth orbits and the exploration and settlement of the moon:
“The purpose of this agreement is to facilitate and explore, in a manner that meets both national and commercial goals and objectives, joint public-private arrangements that would continue to build the ability for humans to live and work in space through the expansion of exploration capabilities beyond low Earth orbit,” the agreement says.
The lunar frontier beckons. And here’s your chance to help– Never before has the public had a direct opportunity to help build a space program like this!
Who We Are: We’re the Golden Spike Company, a private business led by former NASA leaders, space scientists, and space engineers that is working to launch human expeditions to the surface of the Moon, beginning by 2020.
For all of you Google Lunar X Prize fans who have spent the last five years on the edge of your seat wondering who was going to win this slow motion race to the moon (and you know who you are), things got a bit clearer after last week’s global team summit in Chile attended by 20 of the 23 competitors.
According to an entry on the prize’s blog, four teams have announced launch contracts for sending their rovers to the lunar surface:
Moon Express mentioned in their presentation that they are planning for a 2015 launch! This puts them in a tight race with a lot of other teams who have largely mentioned early 2015 as a timeline (e.g. Omega Envoy’s planned Q2 2015), with Barcelona Moon having a launch service contract for June 2014 and Astrobotic signed up for a launch with SpaceX in October 2015. The race is on…
In addition, many of the teams expressed interest in collaborating with each other—so expect more to be joining forces as things continue to heat up!
Given the lead time required to arrange for a launch and the Dec. 31, 2015 deadline for winning the prize, it’s likely that any team that doesn’t have a ride by now (or very, very soon) isn’t going to the moon.
Of course, having a ride doesn’t mean a company has the technology or expertise to place a rover on the lunar surface. We’ll see how all this goes.
A number of teams have already folded or combined with other competitors. It sounds like another wave of these moves is expected soon.
Artist’s conception of a Bigelow lunar habitat. (Credit: Bigelow Aerospace)
I really don’t know what to make of this story about NASA cooperating with Bigelow Aerospace to put a habitat on the moon:
Business deals don’t get much bigger than this one. Have you ever read a contract that gives a governmental green light to a program to “place a base on the surface of the moon?” Ever see an agreement signed by the U.S. government that declares a specific goal “to extend and sustain human activities across the solar system?” Me, either.
Yet that is essence of an adventurous deal already reached between NASA and Las Vegas space entrepreneur Robert Bigelow. An official announcement is still a few days away and will likely happen during a news conference at NASA headquarters. In the meantime, I have a draft copy of what could be an historic contract, one that reads like a Kubrick screenplay or an Arthur C. Clarke story. It is flat-out otherworldly….
NASA has picked Bigelow Aerospace to be a linchpin of this new strategy. The agreement will formalize a series of strategic goals and timetables for the next Space Race. Bigelow’s company would become a clearinghouse of sorts. Its first assignment: to identify which other companies would be most valuable for NASA’s long-range goals, including permanent bases on other celestial bodies, the exploration of the most distant parts of our solar system, and commercial projects that could stimulate the U.S. economy. This is a marriage of American know-how, practical business goals and good, old-fashioned adventure.
The agreement seems rather unusual. Maybe it would be a study done by Bigelow under a Space Act Agreement. And it’s odd that the writer would have a draft copy of a legal agreement that has yet to be signed. It’s possible, but it strikes me as unlikely.
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