Slashdot points out that Shackleton Energy Company, a small startup with $1.2MM in seed funding, wants to create a lunar base camp and mine the moon by 2020 for "processing and transporting lunar products to market in Low Earth Orbit and beyond". Actually, this would make a lot more sense for NASA to take this on, and jumpstart a new industry, but the idea is fantastic. Currently "all" the cost of getting something in space is in the launch vehicle, and many of the times it doesn't work. Once the basic infrastructure and rail gun launch system is in place, building systems on the moon could be less costly, and simple to get in space.
No comments:
Post a Comment