Hi reddit,

My name is David Iron, I'm one of the founders of Lunar Mission One. We're a non-profit organization planning two upcoming scientific trips to the moon.

For the first trip in 2017 - we'll be hitching a ride with Astrobotic, and we'll be sending a disc-drive filled with images from our #Footsteps campaign, as well as the top-voted image in this /r/pics contest.

In 2024, we'll be conducting more extensive geological science of the moon, determining conditions on the surface for a lunar base, as well as conducting an experiment for lunar astronomy. Additionally, we'll be sending a much larger time capsule to the moon containing the DNA records of millions of humans.

Proof: https://twitter.com/LunarMissionOne/status/651432391567933441?lang=en

So, ask me anything!

*Edit (3:13PM ET): Hey All - Thanks for all the great questions! It's late here in England, so I need to step away for a bit. I'll be back in the morning to answer more questions! -David

Comments: 111 • Responses: 39  • Date: 

Bardfinn41 karma

I was wondering how the storage medium for the digital archives will be shielded from / hardened against cosmic radiation?

BlueFamily31 karma

Given the results of the /r/pics thread, I hope it's not.

Bardfinn5 karma

It'll probably be a particular black and white linedrawing, that will compress into less than 3 kilobytes of space. And only one from that thread will go.

Storage used to be ridiculously premium. Now it is nearly ubiquitous. One artifact will be a drop in the bucket.

I just want to know how the whole system is going to be archive-quality.

LunarMissionOne7 karma

We have two missions. The first in 2017 with Astrobotic will simply deliver a disc (expect Blu-ray) and not attempt any special longevity – it will be on the surface.

The second mission in 2024 will create a much larger archive and be placed several tens of meters below the surface. This is the one that could survive a billion years, a geological timescale. We shall be researching the digital material for selection over the coming three years and are forming a working group of scientists to oversee the work. But note that the location itself has exceptional preservation conditions – very cold (perhaps -150C), no atmosphere or any fluids, inert (physically, chemically and biologically), and protected by lots of moonrock from cosmic rays etc.

EcHoVeXuS2 karma

You mean in 2024? Pretty sure getting back to 2014's gonna take a lot more funding :)

LunarMissionOne2 karma

Whoops, well spotted.....now corrected.

imthatguy2512 karma

What are you hoping to achieve so far?

LunarMissionOne11 karma

Right now, we're looking make people aware of our project, of the potential not only for its space science and exploration, not only for its role in the global programme that will lead to Mars via the Moon, but also of the involvement of people all around the World. So the first stage is a mission to the Moon in 2017 via the Pittsburgh based firm Astrobotic, who will take a digital disc of information from anyone, including a photo of your footsteps, shoes or feet for free.......

Tahj424 karma

I just learned about it. Considering that you guys have hope to achieve a successful mission by 2017 is already pretty impressive.

LunarMissionOne6 karma

The 2017 mission will only deliver a digital disc, via the Astrobotic spacecraft. The 2024 mission is the main one, and will involve serious industrial effort - we expect mainly in the US.

boringoldcookie1 karma

Why do you want Moon to Mars vs Earth to Mars?

KimJongsLicenseToIll0 karma

I'm not an engineer, but I imagine it would be easier to assemble a large enough ship to get to Mars(with supplies and whatnot) piece by piece on the moon and launch from there, instead of a launch from Earth.

LUMiNARY_ATL1 karma

Why would you do it from the moon and not earth orbit

flPieman2 karma

If you mean low earth orbit like the ISS, they still experience 90% (made up but it's a lot) of the Earths gravity. On the moon it's like 16%

LUMiNARY_ATL1 karma

What about outside of orbit?

flPieman2 karma

Depends on distance, at 4000 miles 25%, 8000 11% 12,000 6%.

It's proportional to the inverse square of distance.

LunarMissionOne2 karma

If you just want to launch something to Mars, then do it straight from Earth. But if you want to explore Mars seriously, with repeatable and sustainable manned exploration, it will require infrastructure, resupply of resources etc etc. It becomes very expensive, and the biggest cost is logistics. Over time, the economics favour using the Moon, both its surface and its orbit, as a staging point including (looking beyond this century) using fuel that can be harvested from the Moon (its regolith). There’s still lots to find out about the best way to explore the solar system, but the laws of physics suggest the Moon should be part of it.

_171_11 karma

Will you accept any image that wins the /r/pics contest?

coscorrodrift5 karma

Yes. What if a pornographic image wins? Will you still accept it? What if someone posts a pic of their best friend without consent? What if I post a picture of Taylor Swift? Maybe she doesn't want her image in space. Maybe she would sue you.

_171_1 karma

What if a photoshopped picture of our glorious leader Kim Jong Un wins, and the political incident that hence unfolds pulls the world's most heavily armed nations into all-out war?

LunarMissionOne4 karma

I understand the issues. Firstly, there is a big difference between our Astrobotic mission in 2017, when we send up a simple digital disc of data carrying some free material (mainly photos for “Footsteps on the Moon”) plus personal information you can pay to upload, and our main LM1 mission in 2024, which is a separate and serious lunar science and exploration mission.

The 2024 mission will deposit a Billion year time capsule below the lunar surface that will contain an epic record of Life on Earth. This archive will be made up of human history and civilisation, and a scientific record of the biosphere with a species database (animals, plants, bacteria etc) – the Public Archive. It will also contain personal information that anyone can pay to be included – the Private Archive.

The Public Archive will be moderated by public authorities as a freely available resource for research and education. On the other hand, information in the Private Archive belongs to those who submit it – they are paying customers. There will be sensible controls over how the private information may or may not be used outside of the lunar archive.

The 2017 Astrobotic mission is a kind of precursor for the 2014 Private Archive, giving anyone the chance to send something up in the short term. Because some of it is free, including the winning Reddit photo, we can expect a less serious attitude from contributors. And yes, it will be moderated. “Watch this space.”

pancake425 karma

I'm currently a student in Aerospace Engineering at a top tier ABET University. My GPA is a little low (3.1), but I just wanna get a job in a fast paced, innovative setting. Not a stagnated field doing buckle checks on wings or something like that. Any tips?

LunarMissionOne3 karma

The first thing to say is that we’re expecting a lot of the engineering activity of the project to be done in the US. Who does what is mainly to be determined over the next three years, with the launch contract maybe some three years after that. Several geographic locations are likely to be involved, but at this moment we are seeing good potential for R&D in the Silicon Valley (San Francisco) area of California and in Houston Texas for drilling.

rmc30964 karma

What are your thoughts on space tourism and when do you think we will start to see that?

LunarMissionOne12 karma

Space tourism will happen, but although it's a great experience it's expensive and dangerous compared to robotic missions like ours - if we blow up we've only lost information (already copied anyway) and equipment. Because of the extra safety requirements, manned missions are always much more expensive than robotic, but where the explorers go, tourists will probably follow at some point. For Earth orbit, "tourists" have already been on the ISS. For the specialist sub-orbital craft now under development, they should be flying safely by 2020. For the Moon, I'd guess the 2030s. For Mars, perhaps a decade later. For both Moon and Mars, we can expect some orbital non-landing trips to start with - like Apollo 8 and 10.

arnavxv4 karma

After 2024, what future missions will you plan if experiments are proven successful? What would be the impact of the data you are looking for with the 2024 craft? What is the importance of the experiments the spacecraft will be taking on the moon?

LunarMissionOne6 karma

We'd look for a South Pole "sample return" mission, that will go to our lander and pick up a box of rock samples that we will select, pack and store during the 2024 mission. This second mission will probably be led by someone else, most probably as a space agency mission, either manned or robotic (with a rover to travel to our 2024 landing site). Back on Earth, we can do more precise science on the samples than we can do on the Moon, including a better investigation of lunar activity during the period when life first formed on Earth, giving us a better indicatoin of how that might have happened.

Otherwise, further missions depend on how much money we make from the private archive, over and above the costs of the mission. Our market research predicts a few billions of dollars - for which we will need a global participation. If we do make that kind of surplus, I can see us helping to fund a lunar infrastructure that can support future planetary exploration, in particular Mars. Exploring Mars will be very costly, mainly in the logistics required, and using the Moon can help to bring that cost down. That leads to another science objective for the 2024 mission - the investigation of the south pole for a permanent manned base - it's got hazards (dangerous radiation) and opportunities (use of lunar material for shelter, water, oxygen and fuel), but we need a better assessment than we can achieve remotely. So we need to go there and get better measurements on the surface.

And let's not forget the radioastronomy experiment were planning; this is to check the Moon's potential for low frequency radiowave detection to understand better, for example, the Big Bang origination of the Universe - low frequencies (<15MHz) are aborbed by the Earth's atmosphere and astronomers think that relatively simple wires laid on the surface on the far side will suffice. Being at the south pole, LM1 can predict what the far side environment will be.

CowboyBigBoss1 karma

I really hope you actually have a mole account for /r/pics to "organically" submit the winning picture (I'm sure you do), because if you ask Reddit to give you one it'll just be dickbutt (as you can currently see.)

LunarMissionOne2 karma

See my answer elsewhere…..

sh1tbr1cks3 karma

Will you be taking the top voted picture to the moon simply as a digital file? That's less exciting than printing it out and leaving a copy.

SuperSMT5 karma

Considering it'll cost $1,200,000 per kilogram, a print-out picture might be a bit expensive...

Suck_A_Fat_One_3 karma

I don't give a damn! Dickbutt is worth it!

LunarMissionOne3 karma

Sending anything to the Moon that has mass is expensive. Information can be incredibly small in both size and weight, and so that’s what we carry.

tanstaafl223 karma

Do you guys actually have a ride with Astrobotic in 2017? And by that I mean does Astrobotic actually have a ride in 2017? They make a lot of noise about having a launch with SpaceX, but it seems they have yet to ink a real contract. They certainly aren't on the SpaceX manifest and if anything they have announced to date had any merit then wouldn't it have unlocked the GLXP extension to 2017? This question may be more directed at Astrobotic than Lunar Mission One, but it seems that the validity of your claim about a first mission in 2017 is entirely dependent upon the answers to this question.

LunarMissionOne7 karma

Yes, we have a formal contract with Astrobotic. Astrobotic has a relationship with SpaceX that goes back some years and has optioned the launch.

The whole GLXP has been subject to serious delays to date, and the more experienced traditional space industry can claim, with a lot of justification, that the difficulties were underestimated. Yet the leading teams do appear to be getting to the point of flight status engineering, under which timescales are more predictable. The 2017 date is the best we can give today, though it's always wise to be risk-aware.

tanstaafl221 karma

Getting the engineering work done and flight ready is certainly a notable achievement, but it seems like the biggest hurdle in GLXP is getting enough funds to land a concrete launch contract. I believe Astrobotic's spacecraft requires a dedicated launch and even with SpaceX's GLXP discount this comes in at around $55 million. Does Astrobotic even have anywhere close to this sum stored away in the bank? This seems pretty hard to believe...

I read the other day that another GLXP contender, Moon Express, just announced a firm launch contract with Rocket Lab for 3 launches on Electron and two of those are in 2017. Why not send your payload up with them? I think they have even already flight tested some of their technology. It seems like those two achievements alone puts them far ahead of the pack.

SuperSMT1 karma

Astrobotic probably doesn't have the money for an entire rocket yet, that's why they're selling excess payload capacity to this project and to that Japanese soft drink company.

LunarMissionOne1 karma

As you say, these questions are best directed to Astrobotic. Note there is also now another competitor with a launch contract.

-TheTechGuy-3 karma

Additionally, we'll be sending a much larger time capsule to the moon containing the DNA records of millions of humans.

How would you be selecting this?

Having my DNA record on the moon would be pretty sweet...

LunarMissionOne2 karma

The 2024 time capsule will be a large digital record of Life on Earth, including private stuff you can send yourself, and you can include your DNA code stored in a single strand of hair. It’s a personal choice, for you to decide whether to include it in your private archive. Our market research suggests most people who send personal information will want to include their DNA/hair.

The DNA is just another form of information, and the strand of hair carries its code. The hair is a bit like a digital memory stick – what’s important is the information it carries.

I like to think of it as “mind and body”. Your mind is expressed by the digital description you send about yourself – your life, family, friends. Your body is expressed by your DNA code as a kind of biological definition.

aeternias2 karma

Will you be hiring more people in the future? If so, what kind of people are you looking for and what are some of the things that a person should have to work with you guys?

Edit: Also, I apologize for reaching front page with a load of porn and Gabe Newell only to write down NASA instead of Lunar Mission One.. Not a good way to start a job conversation I guess :)

LunarMissionOne2 karma

Nearly all the work of this mission will be done under contract, rather than by LM1 directly. It will need engineers, scientists, marketeers, educators, laywers, financiers - the list goes on. We expect a key area of development will be in remote controlled wire-line deep drilling; a strategic technology for planetary exploration on Mars and other solar system bodies, where any evidence of basic life is more likely to be below the surface than on or above it.

The main mission work would be done under a major international aerospace firm, which would manage the mission development and operations, planning and managing the programme, and arranging for contracts for the work. We look to select this lead company within three years. There will be another contract to lead on the global sales and marketing.

But the space mission is only half the work. The other half is the development of the archive. This will be a huge "Big Data" internet project involving many people around the World. Some of the archive will be put together by professionals such as environmental and bio-evolutionary scientists. Some of it will be put together by schoolchildren, as a learning experience as they record local history, geography and so on. Based on other projects, we predict tens of millions of children around the World will eventually play a part, however small individually, in putting the public archive together.

So we also need people expert in information technology, in data modelling, networking, security - even the hardware of the archive itself.

aeternias1 karma

If I understood that correct, all the primary level parts of the mission will be (or already are) outsourced? So technically, you as a company don't require mechanical, automation or electrical engineers?

How does the whole backbone of the project look like from your perspective; also, what's actually the true backbone of a space craft (what controls the whole system, how does it work)?

What do you know about space travel now (after starting this project) that you didn't know before? And what excites you the most in your work?

LunarMissionOne1 karma

We do need a project management team to set up, over the next three years or so, the arrangements for the main project itself. Creating that team has been LM1's main activity since our Kickstarter at the end of last year. The team consists of four main areas:-

  1. the mission team to procure the mission with its technology and operations;

  2. the science team to plan the mission's lunar science;

  3. the marketing team to promote the project and secure the early market revenues;

  4. the education team to plan the educational programme, starting with a pilot project next year.

Naturally, to set the main project up, these four teams consist of (1) engineers, (2) scientists, (3) marketing people and (4) educational experts. We are expanding the teams internationally, but you can find the existing membership here:- https://lunarmissionone.com/about-us/meet-the-team

The whole project is really in two parts - the space mission with its science and technology, and the archive project with an educational component that will reach right around the World. At the top level is a non-profit, a special Trust that will ensure its public good objectives, and spend any surplus funds on future space science and exploration, aiming for research and educational applications via its "boldy go" projects. For the main LM1 implementation, we look to at least one space agency to provide the authority for the lead mission company to manage all the things necessary for the mission, and so to deliver the archive and the science instruments to the Moon.

How the mission with its spacecraft works technically will be up to that lead mission company with its industrial consortium. But we expect something like the mission identified by a feasibility study we did three years ago. You can read about it here:- https://lunarmissionone.com/lunar-mission-one/the-business-case-technical-review

See also the programme plan for getting there:- https://lunarmissionone.com/lunar-mission-one/programme-plan

I have worked in the space sector as a project financier for sixteen years. The first eight were in satellites and the second eight in science and exploration, starting with advising the UK and US authorities on how to get private resources and investment to help their strategies. LM1 is part of the "New Space" movement in which private ventures take the initiative - some are actually non-profits like LM1.

I was fifteen when Armstrong stepped onto the Moon, became a professional engineer, and have always had an interest in theoretical physics, so picking up space travel has been quite natural. I guess, above all, I am most excited at the prospect of helping in some small way the development of 21st century space endeavour by direct participation - using the networked society to engage people beyond politics - combining the best of market economics with the best of social good.

zeperf2 karma

I find it interesting that hobbyist aren't yet getting small crafts into space or on the moon. What is the biggest challenge in getting a small craft into space? The acceleration? The radiation? I'm sure we have the computational power.

LunarMissionOne5 karma

Getting into Earth orbit is one thing. It requires a high standard of engineering. There are many challenges, not least the safety aspects of dealing with so much ignitable rocket fuel. But building the spacecraft itself is not too difficult at the cubesat scale, and even smaller.

Getting to the Moon is much harder. Landing without crashing requires a complex integration of navigation and engine control, especially to avoid last minute hazards as they had to do in Apollo 11. This is high integrity engineering that takes lots of development and testing to get right. Hobbyists invariably underestimate the difficulties going from the theory to the operational system. But it's a wonderful subject to excite people to involve themselves with the science and engineering, and learn as they go - we need more engineers!

0thatguy2 karma

Congratulations on your successful kick starter! It's amazing that you don't need a space agency any more to land on the Moon, just public generosity.

Have you cooperated with any of the other private teams aiming to land on the Moon, like the other Lunar X prize competitors? Or Moonspike?

LunarMissionOne3 karma

To make the most of our idea, we do actually want a space agency working with us. It gives us greater clout when dealing with industry. It also overcomes a legal issue of who can do things on the Moon - it's a contentious and political area and we can deal with it by having a space agency provide us with the authority to operate, even though it's all managed by commerce and industry.

Having a space agency onside also helps us integrate our activities with those of the other space players - we see ourselves as very much part of the global exploration roadmap that the agencies are, somewhat tentatively, working towards jointly.

It would also be nice to have more than one space agency involved, as there is more than one government role we can foresee. Many people like the idea of governments getting involved in space, on behalf of the public, rather than trust it all to the private sector. The issue is how to arrange the various players - industry, government, universities, schools, private citizens, so that they each play to their strengths - we see LM1 as a form of partnership between the public and private sectors.

What is important though, is that we drive the agenda with our flexibility to respond to public demand. This is a citizens' project.

With regard to the other private space teams, I must emphasise that we (Lunar Missions Ltd working on behalf of Lunar Missions Trust) are a form of commissioning agency that raises funds for missions to be managed by others. So we see the other teams as part of the supply industry, which we look towards to undertake the missions for us.

So for example, we have Astrobotic (a Google Lunar X prize competitor) under contract to deliver a disc (or several discs) for us on their Griffin spacecraft in 2017. The arrangements for our 2024 mission will be much more complex, and we will seek a major international aerospace corporation to manage it all for us. We expect a consortium of firms and that may well include some of the "New Space" companies - it depends on how competitive they each are.

We know Moonspike, but we don't have plans to work with them.

singtalianx2 karma

When will the /r/pics contest be over?

LunarMissionOne1 karma

I think in a day or so.

Bob_Droll2 karma

Why are you sending pictures to the moon? What are you planning on doing with these pictures?

I have this mental image of you tossing a hard drive out the window onto the lunar surface, wiping the dust off your hands, and then heading back home; mission accomplished.

LunarMissionOne5 karma

For the 2017 mission, we’re simply sending a disc on the Astrobotic spacecraft. It’s the LM1 2024 mission that will contain an epic record of Life on Earth, as part of a significant science and exploration mission that drills deep for the first time on another solar system body. By placing the archive inside the borehole, where the preservation conditions are truly astonishing, it could survive an exceptional timescale, indeed the timescale of life on Earth itself. Who or what will find it, and when? Who knows. But imagining its discovery gets people thinking about who and what we are, both individually and as a species, and of Life on Earth itself.

HighTechnocrat2 karma

Why the south pole of the moon? Is it somehow superior to the north pole?

LunarMissionOne2 karma

Only marginally so, from a number of perspectives, but the arguments tend to stack up for the South Pole, eg with its scientific interest in the South Pole to Aitken basin. And it makes a lot of sense to concentrate resources on one area. Maybe we should leave the North Pole as a kind of natural wilderness – I know some people think we shouldn’t be doing anything on the Moon at all!

TheMan0fSteel2 karma

You said you will be conductin more extensive geological science, so, geologically speaking, what are you looking for and expecting to find up there on the moon?

LunarMissionOne3 karma

By drilling deep, we will investigate the geological record of the Moon and the formation of the early solar system, and we will also look to identify resources to help sustain a lunar base. You can find the case for LM1’s geological science here:

https://lunarmissionone.com/download.html?path=Preliminary%20Lunar%20Science%20Drivers%20for%20Lunar%20Mission%20One%20Scientific%20Rationale.pdf

Dauntles_Undegrowth2 karma

Will you be designing your own launcher and transfer stage or will you use an existing launcher?

LunarMissionOne1 karma

It's up to the lead supplier that we will contract with to manage the mission and decide on the launcher. In practice, we expect an existing launcher, though the decision doesn’t really have to be made for several years. We will need a medium lift launch and there should be a number of options.

galactictranquility2 karma

What are we gaining from sending images to the moon?

Bardfinn3 karma

Not OP, but —

If a very large rock hits the Earth, and initiates an extinction event, if it is big enough it could wipe out all of humanity's artifacts on the planet. If it isn't quite that big, then the natural processes of geology, erosion, and life would eventually make the traces of humanity on this planet disappear.

If, however, another civilisation finds one of the spacecraft we have sent out, and has the ability to come calling, they would at least have a greater chance of finding an artifact buried on the moon with a marker over it, than buried under Svalbard's ice sheet.

LunarMissionOne4 karma

For the 2017 Astrobotic mission you can send much more than just images. Anything digital.

The main LM1 mission in 2024 will contain a far larger record of Life on Earth, and be very safe for much longer than anything on Earth.

hatrackhotel2 karma

Hello, I'm interested in the financial aspect of your mission. You say on your website that you have predicted the mission to be about one thousand times as expensive as the amount you raised in your Kickstarter (some 700 million compared to about 700 thousand).

Your website states that "Lunar Mission One can expect funding support from government, from local to national", but as we all know getting government funding can be very hard. I know you have a relationship with Astrobotic, but there have been many failed (or even malicious) attempts (see: Mars One) that have been just as popular and then fizzled out.

I suppose my questions are, for the skeptic- how are you funding this all, exactly? How did you make 700 million easy to obtain? How do you feel about other sort of "independent" projects like this that have failed, and how do you plan on setting yourselves apart?

LunarMissionOne1 karma

This is for me the most important question of all. May I point you to the answer in our website - https://lunarmissionone.com/lunar-mission-one/revenues.

Otherwise, in brief:

  1. We expect only a small proportion of those who eventually buy, to buy at this early stage, a decade before the mission launch. The Astrobotic mission allows us to tap into those who don’t normally wait this long. We will ramp up the marketing over the years.

  2. We are a serious part of the global exploration strategy of the solar system being put together by space agencies around the World. Our science team (of senior academic scientists) was the first to start, from the very beginning of the project.

  3. To crowdfund a serious space project, we have to go beyond the space enthusiast community, even beyond the more general science and technology community. It’s too small a market and we will not get the main revenues our market research predicts. To do that we have to have something that people want to buy for themselves, irrespective of who they are. That’s where the personal information comes in, and particularly DNA. Everyone knows about the Moon, and most people are appreciative of space. But the private archive is all about people themselves, plus their families, plus their friends. It’s something to reflect on at important stages of peoples’ lives. Space is merely the backdrop.

  4. We expect, and are already getting, sponsors who can carry us through periods of negative cash flow while we build up the market revenues. Government funding support is likely to be directed at industry as they tackle some of the innovative engineering challenges, as that can lead to spinout economic benefits. That support reduces the cost of the mission for us.

hatrackhotel2 karma

Aren't you afraid that this will look like you're taking money from people in the "now" because your prospective goal is so far in the future that maybe they will have forgot by then? How can you guarantee a result to these people, other than with marketing jargon?

LunarMissionOne1 karma

This is the principle of crowdfunding. People who buy into a project at this stage do so in the knowledge that they are supporting the start of something interesting to them, something they want to support. They are enthusiasts, and they can participate in the project as it develops. They know the timescales (it's on the website) and would know that there are risks as it's not possible to "guarantee" the final result.

The marketing will change as we approach the space mission itself. The risks will be reduced and we can later expect some form of customer guarantee. Many more will buy into it when they can see it's at a much lower risk.

Agreeing contractual arrangements with the main mission consortium will be a major step in de-risking the project. Expect about three years.

It's all step by step. And that includes our 2017 Astrobotic mission, to promote the idea and its public engagement.

Gaybrosauros2 karma

Hey. I'm the guy in the /r/pics thread who said he would get a dickbutt tattoo if it wins.

Just wanted to ask what image would you guys want to win if you could pick anything and why is it dickbutt?

LunarMissionOne1 karma

May I refer you to my answer to [–]171?

Sparkblaze461 karma

[deleted]

LunarMissionOne7 karma

I don't think the cost of colonising the Moon would be worth it. If people want to colonise off-Earth, then Mars is much more sensible - and even that is going to be really difficult (terraforming in particular), and may well take a few centuries to get established. There are lots of uncertainties at this time.

Instead, the Moon could well provide a base for science and exploration itself, where specialists visit to work for periods rather like the bases in Antarctica today.

MathDance51 karma

I have a few questions about the 2024 mission:

Why and in what way will DNA records be sent to the moon in the time capsule? Except for the DNA records, what else is planned to be in the time capsule? Or is that still being thought about?

Thank you for your time!

LunarMissionOne3 karma

In the 2024 mission, DNA code will be stored as single strands of hair. People want to include this to represent their physical body, as a kind of biological definition, in addition to a digital description of their lives. Hair is an exceptional mechanism to record DNA code - very small and lightweight, the DNA is actually broken up but can in principle be read and resequenced by computer.

The time capsule will also contain an epic digital record of Life on Earth. This archive will be made up of human history and civilisation, and a scientific record of the biosphere with a species database (animals, plants, bacteria etc) – the Public Archive. It will also contain personal information that anyone can pay to be included – the Private Archive.

ashdog661 karma

How do I get my DNA record on the moon?

LunarMissionOne2 karma

By sending a strand of hair as part of our 2024 mission.

dimadimadima1 karma

I don't have a question?

LunarMissionOne2 karma

That’s OK, but can you vote?

chemotaxis1010 karma

What kind of regulatory challenges would you expect to affect private ventures into space in the future?

LunarMissionOne3 karma

In our case, we are looking for a space agency to become part of our mission, and that would provide the political and legal authorisation for our lunar operations. And with scientific and public good objectives, we are deliberately not seeking private ownership of anything on the Moon (apart from the information contents of the private archive). The private part of our venture is about the origination and management of the project and its financing.

But in general there are several areas of space law that need to be developed, of ownership, exploitation, access, jurisdiction etc. The 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty has principles but needs detail to be practical. I think we shall see the kind of legal developments that happened with Antarctica, and even with maritime law. Developing space law could provide quite a good example of learning about the fundamentals of law, because with outer space we have to go back to basics – another educational aspect of LM1.

Tucana660 karma

Are you hoping (or expecting) future explorers or inhabitants on the Moon to do anything with your time capsule?

LunarMissionOne2 karma

Nothing is expected. It’s all for the imagination, or fiction, or even faith.

Nspired0 karma

I'm currently attending the University Tennessee working toward an aerospace engineering major and mechanical engineering minor. I'm on track to graduate in spring of 2017 any chance you'd be looking for interns anytime soon? I would be more that grateful to send in a copy of my résumé

LunarMissionOne1 karma

From another reply:-

The first thing to say is that we’re expecting a lot of the engineering activity of the project to be done in the US. Who does what is mainly to be determined over the next three years, with the launch contract maybe some three years after that. Several geographic locations are likely to be involved, but at this moment we are seeing good potential for R&D in the Silicon Valley (San Francisco) area of California and in Houston Texas for drilling.

Suck_A_Fat_One_0 karma

Is dickbutt going on the moon? We will upvote him all the way there.

LunarMissionOne2 karma

Please see my answer to [–]171.

PM_ME_UR_MATHPROBLEM-1 karma

Have you been disappointed with how many submissions of "dickbutt" there are in your /r/pics contest? What are your predictions for the image that gets voted up?

LunarMissionOne2 karma

Please see my answer to [–]171.

kyredbud-3 karma

I've heard that there are alien bases within a crater on the edge of the moon from our perspective. It was said that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stated this claim. I realize you can probably not confirm or deny this but why would they say that?

SuperSMT3 karma

Here's why: they didn't. There are no secret bases on the Moon...

LunarMissionOne2 karma

Enough said.

mstr0pppts-4 karma

Have you become aware of the mistake it was to have users submit a photo and pic it? You might as well print dickbutt out now.

LunarMissionOne1 karma

Please see my answer to [–]171.

HHhunter-4 karma

Are you sure this r/pics is going to go well?

LunarMissionOne2 karma

Please see my answer to [–]171.