It’s one small step for a company, and one giant leap for the privatization of outer space.
The Federal Aviation Administration granted approval on Wednesday to the first-ever corporate moon-landing. A company called Moon Express received permission to travel to the moon, for a mission being driven by a $30 million Google-funded prize.
The go-ahead was given by the FAA after consultation with the White House, NASA, and the State Department, according to the LA Times. The launch is planned for late next year.
“Only three super powers have ever landed on any planet—we will become the fourth super power,” Moon Express co-founder Naveen Jain has said. No private company has ever before been given permission to travel outside of the earth’s orbit.
Though approval was granted specifically for Google’s contest—the prize goes to whichever company can travel 500 meters on the surface of the moon while capturing high-definition video—Moon Express’ long-run interests lie most notably in outer space mining.
“So many resources which are extremely rare on Earth are abundant on the Moon,” Jain said in January. “We shouldn’t only be mining the Earth, we should be thinking of the Moon as our eighth continent.”
According to Moon Express CEO Bob Richards, the company has already inked deals with clients, to carry payloads on the Google-incentivized trip. Customers include “the International Lunar Observatory; Celestis; and a partnership between the University of Maryland and the National Laboratories of Frascati, Italy,” according to CNBC.
Multi-agency approval including the State Department was necessary, the LA Times noted, because of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. The accord stipulates that celestial travel must be conducted for peaceful purposes. There are 104 parties to the agreement, including all five permanent members of the UN Security Council.
The rise of the commercial space travel industry has occurred alongside the long-term decline of Congressional funding for NASA. Around the time of the first manned landing on the moon, the space agency was getting about 4.5 percent of all federal funding. In recent years, NASA has received about 0.5 percent of all US government revenue. This year, the Obama administration asked Congress to implement $300 million in cuts to NASA’s budget for fiscal year 2017.
Private companies like SpaceX have filled the gap, conducting missions on behalf of the US government. As the Financial Times noted, for example, the Elon Musk-founded outfit currently has a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to fly 12 cargo missions to the International Space Station.
