These are exciting times for space capitalism and libertarianism in the infinite free market of the cosmos.
The private race to the moon is really starting to heat up.
A team from Israel called SpaceIL has signed a contract to launch its robotic lunar lander toward the moon aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in the second half of 2017. SpaceIL is therefore a strong contender to win the $20 million top prize in the Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP), contest organizers said...
The Google Lunar X Prize was created in 2007 to encourage the development of the private spaceflight industry, and hopefully help usher in a new era of affordable access to the moon and other space destinations.
The first privately funded team to successfully land a robotic craft on the moon, have the lander move at least 1,650 feet (500 meters), and beam high-definition video and photos back to Earth by the end of 2017 will win the $20 million grand prize. The second team to accomplish these goals will get $5 million; another $5 million is set aside for other milestones, bringing the total purse to $30 million.
The first commercial round-trips to Mars will blast off within 10 years, according to PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, CEO of U.S commercial rocket maker SpaceX.
The trip will cost a cool $500,000 (£300,000) - entirely payable through PayPal, no doubt.
Dr. Edgemar: What's bullshit Mr. Quaid? Afraid to admit that you're having a schizo paranoid episode, or are you really an invincible secret agent from Mars, who is in the middle of an interplanetary conspiracy to make him think that he's a lonely construction worker. Stop punishing yourself Doug, you're a fine upstanding man you have a beautiful wife who loves you, you have a whole life ahead of you. But you gotta want to return to reality.