Greg's Corner

US company receives government approval for moon landing

It’s been 47 years since the world was first glued to their TVs watching Neil Armstrong taking the first human steps on the moon while uttering his famous phrase. It’s been 44 years since the Apollo 17 mission was the last manned mission to Earth’s closest neighbor in space. Due to political and financial reasons we haven;t been back to the moon since.

Now for the first time ever, the US government has given approval to a private company to land on the moon. Moon Express is a private company financed by some Silicon Valley bigwigs, that is looking to land on the moon in 2017. Will it bring back the excitement of 1969? Probably not since it won’t be a manned flight. Moon Express plans on sending a robotic lander to the moon in order to win the Google X Lunar Prize which promises $20 million to the first private company that can reach a lander on the moon and have it return.

It’s far from a guarantee, but if Moon Express could complete a successful trip to the moon it could start a whole new industry of commercial space flight. Then maybe we’ll be able to have our imaginations captured by space flight once again like it was with Apollo Missions. Or, in Silicon Valley terms, will it be just another startup that will fail to launch?