Private Company Plans To Bring Moon Rocks Back To Earth In 3 Years

According to ArsTechnica –

After several years of secrecy, a company called Moon Express revealed the scope of its ambitions on Wednesday. And they are considerable. The privately held company released plans for a single, modular spacecraft that can be combined to form successfully larger and more capable vehicles. Ultimately the company plans to establish a lunar outpost in 2020 and set up commercial operations on the Moon. Perhaps most intriguingly, Moon Express says it is self-funded to begin bringing kilograms of lunar rocks back to Earth within about three years.

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New 360° Panorama From The Moon

Experience the latest 360° view from the surface of the moon.

Chang’e 3 is a lunar exploration mission operated by the China National Space Administration (CNSA), incorporating a robotic lander and China’s first lunar rover. It was launched in December 2013 as part of the second phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program.

Go to 360° image HERE.

Loved One’s Ashes Can Be Placed On The Moon For $12,000

According to the ElysiumSpace site –

Early reservations for the Lunar Memorial service open at $9,950 for the first 50 participants, while later reservations will be offered at the regular rate of $11,950. Each Participant provides a symbolic portion of remains to be placed into a personalized capsule. The capsules will then be delivered to the lunar surface by Astrobotic’s Griffin lander as part of Astrobotic Mission One. The landing side is located in the northeast part of the Moon. It contains a pit that is a compelling exploration target for the mission.

I don’t know if it will actually happen, but there you go.

OMG – NASA’s Original Operator’s Manual For The Lunar Rover

 

NASA has a pdf of the original Lunar Roving Vehicle Operations Manual. It covers operation and maintenance of the vehicles that the Apollo astronauts drove on the moon. Very cool!

See the 200+ page pdf HERE.

Correction : THERE ARE NO BAGS OF PUKE ON THE MOON

From Slate.com –

Correction, Dec. 1, 2014: In addition to incorrectly stating that used emesis bags were left on the moon, this post also misidentified astronauts’ sleep periods on the moon as “naps.” The astronauts slept for periods up to eight hours. This post also misstated that a Slatecommenter said the emesis bags were empty. The commeter said the bags might be empty.

Read more about it HERE.

Rotating Moon From Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter [video]

Telescope To Be Planted On Moon in 2015

According to CBC –

A telescope that is set to launch to the moon in 2015 will allow the public to go on the Internet and view the Earth from the lunar surface. The privately funded telescope, known as the International Lunar Observatory precursor (ILO-X), was designed and built by Silicon Valley-based Moon Express Inc. “It’s citizen science on the moon and it’s really a new model of public participation,” Moon Express CEO Bob Richards told The Canadian Press on Tuesday. “This will be a small, but very high-performance telescope on the moon that the public and scientists or professionals and amateurs alike will have access to over the internet.”

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