Get Ready For The Next Space Race, Brought To You By Google
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Moon Express's MX-1 will apparently be able to do a lot of things, and has been described in a number of ways. Fox News said it "is big enough to scoop up some rocks and dirt, store them in an internal compartment, and return it to Earth," and that it "looks for all the world like a pair of donuts wearing an ice cream cone." Moon Express CEO and co-founder Bob Richards said "we call it the iPhone of space," adding that it is "very small." Small like an iPhone? No, small like "You and I could put our arms around it."
Fast Company described it as "a futuristic machine that looked to be part hovercraft, part Mars rover." According to Fast Company, an engineer said that MX-1 is a lunar lander, clarifying ""Well, like, it goes to the moon."
The Moon Express itself pairs scientific exploration with commercial success to justify the project - a jarring combination in a field currently floated by nonprofits. The company's heavy use of startupy buzzwords in explaining the project may explain some of the confused coverage. For example, the Moon Express websitefirst explicitly explains MX-1's function:
Then moves to the company's grand ambitions:
And finally spells out their bottom line:
If successful, they'd be the first private company to land on the moon, and maybe the first to make money off the moon too. The company isn't shy about the potential for mining the rock for its valuable minerals.
So it's difficult not to see Google's project as anything but a means for the oftenannoyingly forward-looking company to incentivize research in the hopes that it could lead to major profit - or at least publicity - in addition to knowledge. But with NASA bleeding funding, it's increasingly tempting to find merit in private, for-profit space exploration.