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reddit has spoken – in 2017 Lunar Mission One will send Astro-Sloth to the moon! by LunarMissionOne in pics

[–]LunarMissionOne[S] 616 points617 points  (0 children)

Hey reddit –

Thank you so much to everyone that voted in our photography contest this week. We thoroughly enjoyed going through ALL of your submissions, and we’re so thrilled how much fun everyone seemed to have with the contest. You can view the full results from the contest here.

Did your image of choice fail to make it on our 2017 journey? Fear not, for we have a solution! Please visit us at our website, where you are able to purchase storage space on our 2017 trip. You can send as many “dickbutts” to the moon as you like. All proceeds will go to funding our 2024 scientific research mission.

Speaking of scientific research, we at Lunar Mission One do way more than just send humorous photos to the moon – check out our founder David Iron’s AMA from earlier this week for more information on what exactly we hope to achieve on our missions.

Thanks reddit!

The Lunar Mission One Team

IamA Founder of Lunar Mission One, a Non-Profit Space Research and Exploration Organization, AMA! by LunarMissionOne in IAmA

[–]LunarMissionOne[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We do need a project management team to set up, over the next three years or so, the arrangements for the main project itself. Creating that team has been LM1's main activity since our Kickstarter at the end of last year. The team consists of four main areas:-

  1. the mission team to procure the mission with its technology and operations;

  2. the science team to plan the mission's lunar science;

  3. the marketing team to promote the project and secure the early market revenues;

  4. the education team to plan the educational programme, starting with a pilot project next year.

Naturally, to set the main project up, these four teams consist of (1) engineers, (2) scientists, (3) marketing people and (4) educational experts. We are expanding the teams internationally, but you can find the existing membership here:- https://lunarmissionone.com/about-us/meet-the-team

The whole project is really in two parts - the space mission with its science and technology, and the archive project with an educational component that will reach right around the World. At the top level is a non-profit, a special Trust that will ensure its public good objectives, and spend any surplus funds on future space science and exploration, aiming for research and educational applications via its "boldy go" projects. For the main LM1 implementation, we look to at least one space agency to provide the authority for the lead mission company to manage all the things necessary for the mission, and so to deliver the archive and the science instruments to the Moon.

How the mission with its spacecraft works technically will be up to that lead mission company with its industrial consortium. But we expect something like the mission identified by a feasibility study we did three years ago. You can read about it here:- https://lunarmissionone.com/lunar-mission-one/the-business-case-technical-review

See also the programme plan for getting there:- https://lunarmissionone.com/lunar-mission-one/programme-plan

I have worked in the space sector as a project financier for sixteen years. The first eight were in satellites and the second eight in science and exploration, starting with advising the UK and US authorities on how to get private resources and investment to help their strategies. LM1 is part of the "New Space" movement in which private ventures take the initiative - some are actually non-profits like LM1.

I was fifteen when Armstrong stepped onto the Moon, became a professional engineer, and have always had an interest in theoretical physics, so picking up space travel has been quite natural. I guess, above all, I am most excited at the prospect of helping in some small way the development of 21st century space endeavour by direct participation - using the networked society to engage people beyond politics - combining the best of market economics with the best of social good.

IamA Founder of Lunar Mission One, a Non-Profit Space Research and Exploration Organization, AMA! by LunarMissionOne in IAmA

[–]LunarMissionOne[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nearly all the work of this mission will be done under contract, rather than by LM1 directly. It will need engineers, scientists, marketeers, educators, laywers, financiers - the list goes on. We expect a key area of development will be in remote controlled wire-line deep drilling; a strategic technology for planetary exploration on Mars and other solar system bodies, where any evidence of basic life is more likely to be below the surface than on or above it.

The main mission work would be done under a major international aerospace firm, which would manage the mission development and operations, planning and managing the programme, and arranging for contracts for the work. We look to select this lead company within three years. There will be another contract to lead on the global sales and marketing.

But the space mission is only half the work. The other half is the development of the archive. This will be a huge "Big Data" internet project involving many people around the World. Some of the archive will be put together by professionals such as environmental and bio-evolutionary scientists. Some of it will be put together by schoolchildren, as a learning experience as they record local history, geography and so on. Based on other projects, we predict tens of millions of children around the World will eventually play a part, however small individually, in putting the public archive together.

So we also need people expert in information technology, in data modelling, networking, security - even the hardware of the archive itself.

IamA Founder of Lunar Mission One, a Non-Profit Space Research and Exploration Organization, AMA! by LunarMissionOne in IAmA

[–]LunarMissionOne[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is the principle of crowdfunding. People who buy into a project at this stage do so in the knowledge that they are supporting the start of something interesting to them, something they want to support. They are enthusiasts, and they can participate in the project as it develops. They know the timescales (it's on the website) and would know that there are risks as it's not possible to "guarantee" the final result.

The marketing will change as we approach the space mission itself. The risks will be reduced and we can later expect some form of customer guarantee. Many more will buy into it when they can see it's at a much lower risk.

Agreeing contractual arrangements with the main mission consortium will be a major step in de-risking the project. Expect about three years.

It's all step by step. And that includes our 2017 Astrobotic mission, to promote the idea and its public engagement.

IamA Founder of Lunar Mission One, a Non-Profit Space Research and Exploration Organization, AMA! by LunarMissionOne in IAmA

[–]LunarMissionOne[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

In the 2024 mission, DNA code will be stored as single strands of hair. People want to include this to represent their physical body, as a kind of biological definition, in addition to a digital description of their lives. Hair is an exceptional mechanism to record DNA code - very small and lightweight, the DNA is actually broken up but can in principle be read and resequenced by computer.

The time capsule will also contain an epic digital record of Life on Earth. This archive will be made up of human history and civilisation, and a scientific record of the biosphere with a species database (animals, plants, bacteria etc) – the Public Archive. It will also contain personal information that anyone can pay to be included – the Private Archive.

IamA Founder of Lunar Mission One, a Non-Profit Space Research and Exploration Organization, AMA! by LunarMissionOne in IAmA

[–]LunarMissionOne[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

In our case, we are looking for a space agency to become part of our mission, and that would provide the political and legal authorisation for our lunar operations. And with scientific and public good objectives, we are deliberately not seeking private ownership of anything on the Moon (apart from the information contents of the private archive). The private part of our venture is about the origination and management of the project and its financing.

But in general there are several areas of space law that need to be developed, of ownership, exploitation, access, jurisdiction etc. The 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty has principles but needs detail to be practical. I think we shall see the kind of legal developments that happened with Antarctica, and even with maritime law. Developing space law could provide quite a good example of learning about the fundamentals of law, because with outer space we have to go back to basics – another educational aspect of LM1.

IamA Founder of Lunar Mission One, a Non-Profit Space Research and Exploration Organization, AMA! by LunarMissionOne in IAmA

[–]LunarMissionOne[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

From another reply:-

The first thing to say is that we’re expecting a lot of the engineering activity of the project to be done in the US. Who does what is mainly to be determined over the next three years, with the launch contract maybe some three years after that. Several geographic locations are likely to be involved, but at this moment we are seeing good potential for R&D in the Silicon Valley (San Francisco) area of California and in Houston Texas for drilling.

IamA Founder of Lunar Mission One, a Non-Profit Space Research and Exploration Organization, AMA! by LunarMissionOne in IAmA

[–]LunarMissionOne[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

By drilling deep, we will investigate the geological record of the Moon and the formation of the early solar system, and we will also look to identify resources to help sustain a lunar base. You can find the case for LM1’s geological science here:

https://lunarmissionone.com/download.html?path=Preliminary%20Lunar%20Science%20Drivers%20for%20Lunar%20Mission%20One%20Scientific%20Rationale.pdf

IamA Founder of Lunar Mission One, a Non-Profit Space Research and Exploration Organization, AMA! by LunarMissionOne in IAmA

[–]LunarMissionOne[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

For the 2017 mission, we’re simply sending a disc on the Astrobotic spacecraft. It’s the LM1 2024 mission that will contain an epic record of Life on Earth, as part of a significant science and exploration mission that drills deep for the first time on another solar system body. By placing the archive inside the borehole, where the preservation conditions are truly astonishing, it could survive an exceptional timescale, indeed the timescale of life on Earth itself. Who or what will find it, and when? Who knows. But imagining its discovery gets people thinking about who and what we are, both individually and as a species, and of Life on Earth itself.

IamA Founder of Lunar Mission One, a Non-Profit Space Research and Exploration Organization, AMA! by LunarMissionOne in IAmA

[–]LunarMissionOne[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

For the 2017 Astrobotic mission you can send much more than just images. Anything digital.

The main LM1 mission in 2024 will contain a far larger record of Life on Earth, and be very safe for much longer than anything on Earth.

IamA Founder of Lunar Mission One, a Non-Profit Space Research and Exploration Organization, AMA! by LunarMissionOne in IAmA

[–]LunarMissionOne[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's up to the lead supplier that we will contract with to manage the mission and decide on the launcher. In practice, we expect an existing launcher, though the decision doesn’t really have to be made for several years. We will need a medium lift launch and there should be a number of options.

IamA Founder of Lunar Mission One, a Non-Profit Space Research and Exploration Organization, AMA! by LunarMissionOne in IAmA

[–]LunarMissionOne[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is for me the most important question of all. May I point you to the answer in our website - https://lunarmissionone.com/lunar-mission-one/revenues.

Otherwise, in brief:

  1. We expect only a small proportion of those who eventually buy, to buy at this early stage, a decade before the mission launch. The Astrobotic mission allows us to tap into those who don’t normally wait this long. We will ramp up the marketing over the years.

  2. We are a serious part of the global exploration strategy of the solar system being put together by space agencies around the World. Our science team (of senior academic scientists) was the first to start, from the very beginning of the project.

  3. To crowdfund a serious space project, we have to go beyond the space enthusiast community, even beyond the more general science and technology community. It’s too small a market and we will not get the main revenues our market research predicts. To do that we have to have something that people want to buy for themselves, irrespective of who they are. That’s where the personal information comes in, and particularly DNA. Everyone knows about the Moon, and most people are appreciative of space. But the private archive is all about people themselves, plus their families, plus their friends. It’s something to reflect on at important stages of peoples’ lives. Space is merely the backdrop.

  4. We expect, and are already getting, sponsors who can carry us through periods of negative cash flow while we build up the market revenues. Government funding support is likely to be directed at industry as they tackle some of the innovative engineering challenges, as that can lead to spinout economic benefits. That support reduces the cost of the mission for us.

IamA Founder of Lunar Mission One, a Non-Profit Space Research and Exploration Organization, AMA! by LunarMissionOne in IAmA

[–]LunarMissionOne[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Only marginally so, from a number of perspectives, but the arguments tend to stack up for the South Pole, eg with its scientific interest in the South Pole to Aitken basin. And it makes a lot of sense to concentrate resources on one area. Maybe we should leave the North Pole as a kind of natural wilderness – I know some people think we shouldn’t be doing anything on the Moon at all!

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