PARIS: A team of rocketeers launched an out-of-this-world Kickstarter campaign Thursday to raise $1 million for “Moonspike” – an ambitious project to launch the first crowdfunded rocket to the moon.
The Moonspike project aims to launch a small titanium payload carrying photos and videos from project backers into space, and ultimately crash it into the moon. The resulting dust plume from the impact should observable from orbit, its backers say. While a science return from the mission would be desirable, the main goal is to see if a small group of engineers can create a moon rocket and payload for a reasonable amount of money, Chris Larmour, a co-founder of the project and serial space entrepreneur, told Space.com in an e-mail. It’s the first campaign of its kind, with the Kickstarter page going live Thursday morning.
“We’ve been working hard to develop our rocket and spacecraft designs over the past few months and today we are opening up our feasibility study document to the public,” Larmour said. The other co-founder is Kristian von Bengtson, also a co-founder of Danish private space travel group Cophenhagen Suborbitals.
Tesla driverless system to use updated radar technology
WASHINGTON: Electric carmaker Tesla announced Sunday it was upgrading its Autopilot software to use more advanced radar technology. In a...
