The Conversation (0)
Science & Tech
Evan Bartlett
Nov 19, 2014
A British team plans to send an unmanned space probe to the Moon and is raising its first round of funding from the public via crowdfunding platform Kickstarter.
The project, known as Lunar Mission One, will bury a time capsule with a "digital memory box" beneath the Moon's surface - those who help fund it can get their name, photographs and other information added to it.
It is hoped the probe will be launched in around ten years and those pledging more than £600 will also be entered into a ballot to choose the name of the spacecraft.
The project is plainly ambitious and challenging, but its special cultural and scientific features should generate wide interest and support. It deserves to succeed.
- Lord Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, University of Cambridge
The team plans to send the probe to the south pole of the Moon, an area which has not been explored by previous missions.
They hope to dig up to 100m below the Moon's surface using "pioneering" drilling technology to access lunar rock dating back as far as 4.5billion years to develop a better understanding of the Earth's satellite and the formation of the solar system.
For me the exciting thing about Lunar Mission One is that everyone can play a part directly in the funding, they can know that they have given this money, and that money is going to go into the technology which is going to land on the Moon and do the science.
- Professor Brian Cox
The public can donate anything from £1 to £5,000 or more - with benefits ranging from access to exclusive photos and project updates to a place in the viewing gallery at mission control when the probe launches.
As of Wednesday morning the Kickstarter campaign had raised £27,929 of its £600,000 target. Donations close on 17 December. Overall the team hopes to raise £500m for the project.
Become part of space history here.
More: Humankind can land on a comet, but still has issues with battery life