Weekend Edition
Fri-Mon / 10-13 March 2017

Blue Origin Proposes 2020 Plan To Start Permanent Moon South Pole, Human Settlement

Jeff Bezos Circulating 7-Page White Paper To NASA Leadership & U.S. Administration Transition Team Detailing Plan To Develop Blue Moon Lunar Lander / Cargo Craft, Amazon-Like Delivery Service Starting July 2020 To Enable Future Human Settlements Near Shackleton Crater Where Ice, Hydrogen & Constant Solar Power Are Available; Wants To ‘Partner With NASA To Achieve This Challenging, Worthy, Exciting Objective’; SpaceX, Moon Express, Astrobotic, Shackleton Energy, Golden Spike, Commercial Ventures Planning Moon Services; Robert Bigleow States “Mars Is Premature At This Time. The Moon Is Not”

Credits: Blue Origin, ESA, NASA, LRO, Bigelow Aerospace

Weekend Edition
Fri-Mon / 24-27 February 2017

2017 Student Moonbots Challenge Winner Could Send Video To Moon And Meet GLXP Winners In Person

Parallel International Competition To Google Lunar XPrize, Moonbots Challenge For Students Ages 8-17 To Detail What They’d Like To Leave On Moon As A Legacy, Build Robotic Lunar Rovers & Make STEM Video; Registrations Due 1 March; 5 Teams (Moon Express, SpaceIL, Synergy Moon, Team Indus, Team Hakuto) Will Attempt To Launch To Moon Before 2018, Land,Travel 500 Meters & Send High Res Video To Earth; Moonbot Grand Prize Winner Video Will Be Sent To Moon On Disc

Credits: Moonbots, GLXP

Friday / 16 September 2016

Blue Origin Developing Huge Rockets,
May Launch Moon Missions

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Working Step By Step With Vision Of ‘Millions Of People Living & Working In Space’ Jeff Bezos Of Blue Origin Hints At Return To The Moon With New Armstrong; Could Fulfill Significant Need For USA Human Moon Missions, Catalyze Multi World Species Settlement; Reusable Orbital New Glenn Rocket In 2 & 3-Stage Configuration To Be 82-m & 95-m Tall, Provide 17.1M Newton (3.85M lbf) Thrust From Seven BE-4 Engines, Capable Of Launching Humans & Cargo Beyond LEO; Reusable Suborbital VTVL New Shepard & Capsule Being Prepared For Test Passenger Flights 2017, Full Operations 2018

Credit: Blue Origin LLC, Jeff Bezos, NASA

Friday / 2 September 2016

Team Synergy Moon Launch With Interorbital Receives Official Verification By GLXP

LED-9-1-2016

The Announcement Out Of Los Angeles CA Verifies The Launch Agreement Between Synergy Moon And Team Member Interorbital Systems; Utilizes NEPTUNE 8 Rocket To Lift Off From Open-Ocean Platform Off California Coast During 2nd Half Of 2017; It Is The 3rd GLXP Team To Receive Launch Verification After SpaceIL (Via SpaceX – Falcon 9) And Moon Express (Via Rocket Lab – Electron); Synergy Moon Co-founders Are Kevin Myrick (USA) & Nebojša Stanojević (Bosnia And Herzegovina), Team Includes Randa & Roderick Milliron, As Well As Individuals And Working Groups In More Than 15 Countries

Credit: Synergy Moon, Interorbital

Wednesday / 27 July 2016

GLXP Team PTS Lands In UAE To Scout Rover Test Sites

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CEO Robert Boehme Of Part-Time Scientists Is In United Arab Emirates To Search For Extreme Environmental Conditions & Soft Sand Inclines To Test 35kg Rover; Rub’ al Khali (The Empty Quarter) Is Largest Contiguous Sand Desert On Earth, Hyper-Arid With Typical Annual Rainfall <3cm And Temperatures Up To 51°C (124°F); With 35 Fixed Staff In Berlin, Germany & 70 Contributing Members Across 3 Continents Team PTS Has Won US$750K In Milestone Prizes So Far & Is Building Significant Industrial And Academic Partnerships; Total Venture Cost About US$35M

Credit: PTS, D. Johnson / The National, D. Yoder, National Geographic

Thursday / 21 July 2016

Space Studies Institute Celebrates SpaceDay 2016 With Free Release Of “The High Frontier”

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SSI Newsletter Summer 2016 Includes Kindle Edition Of Gerard K. O’Neill Space Classic “The High Frontier – Human Colonies in Space” Free Until July 23 With Preface By Kathy Sullivan, Original Don Davis Illustrations, Pat Rawlings Cover Art; 99% Invisible Podcast By Roman Mars Has Producer Katie Mingle Talk With SSI Co-Founder Tasha O’Neill, Freeman Dyson & Author Patrick McCray For Episode Home On LaGrange; Raising Funds Toward SSI G-Lab Initiative To Test Real Impact Of Reduced Gravity On Generations Of Vertebrates (Several Million US$) And For SSI Exotic Propulsion Initiative (US$42,000)

Credit: SSI, P. Rawlings

Weekend Edition
Fri-Mon / 15-18 July 2016

Waypaver Foundation Launching Grant Initiative For Sustainable Lunar Settlement

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Non-Profit Research-Guided Grant Making Institution Based In Chattanooga TN Seeks To Address Humanity’s Greatest Global Challenges By Advancing Key Technologies To Open Lunar Frontier; Led By CEO Nick Arnett, COO Patrick Gray & VP Sara Jennings; Board Of Directors Includes Esther Dyson (Chairman Of Edventure Holdings), Chad Anderson (Managing Director, Space Angels Network), Chris Frangione (VP At XPrize Foundation); More Details Expected At Announcement Event Spaceday 2016 July 20, 09:45, Palo Alto CA

Credit: Waypaver

Wednesday / 6 July 2016

Team Indus Gets Boost From New CNES Lunar Payload For GLXP Mission

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India GLXP Team Indus To Carry French Space Agency CNES CASPEX (Colour cmos cAmera for SPace EXploration); Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) Technology And Patented (3DPlus) Integration Methods Reduce Size Of Optical Imaging Instrument By Factor Of Ten; System Is Also Reprogrammable & Radiation-Tolerant; CASPEX Micro Cameras To Aid Rover Movement By Detecting Ground Obstacles, No-Funds Exchanged Collaboration Saves Team Indus US$500,000 In Development / Procurement Costs; Total Project Cost Estimated At Over $60M; Team Founder Rahul Narayan Sees This As Huge Vote Of Confidence From Prestigious Global Agency

Credit: Axiom Research Labs, Team Indus, CNES, GLXP

Friday / 25 March 2016

New Space Journal Offers 4 Moon Articles From Prominent Lunar Scientists, Advocates

New Space Journal

New Space Vo. 4 No. 1 Free Online Access Through April 7 Presents ‘What Do We Do With The Moon?’ By Editor-In-Chief Scott Hubbard, ‘Toward A Low-Cost Lunar Settlement’ By Alexandra Hall, Chris McKay, John Cumbers, ‘Lunar Station: The Next Logical Step In Space Development’ By Bruce Pittman, Lynn Harper, et al, ‘Site Selection For Lunar Industrialization, Economic Development, And Settlement’ By Dennis Wingo; Team Outlines Potential Human Moon Settlement Perhaps In 5-7 Years For US$10B

Credit: New Space, Mary Ann Liebert Inc. Publisher, NASA, GLXP

Friday / 11 March 2016

Teams Developing LunarCubes, Interplanetary CubeSats & SLS Moon Sat Missions

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Advancing Low-Cost, High-Return CubeSat Technologies Highlighted In Upcoming Events: Flexure Engineering 6th International Workshop On LunarCubes 28-29 Sep In Conjunction With 6th International Workshop On Lunar Surface Applications, CubeSat Developer’s Workshop 20-22 Apr, 5th Interplanetary CubeSat Workshop 24-25 May; SLS To Carry At Least 4 Lunar CubeSats In 2018 – Winner Of NASA ‘Cube Quest Challenge’ Will Be Announced End Of Mar & Join EM-1 Lunar Flyby Mission

Credit: Flexure Engineering, NASA, Morehead State University