Moon Express Looks to Hop Around the Moon

Bob Richards’ Moon Express has some cool plans for exploring our closest celestial neighbor, ones that more resemble Mexican jumping beans than the traditional approaches.

The lander itself will be capable of hopping from place to place. And it will deploy a cluster of micro-hoppers that will be a capable of traveling many kilometers away from the landing site.

Welcome to 21st century space exploration — commercial style.

Richards described his company’s plans during a talk at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif. on Wednesday night. His company is hoping to make lunar exploration commercially viable and to also will the $20 million Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP) for being the first private company to land on the lunar surface and travel 500 meters.

Moon Express has been operating largely under the radar since Richards founded it last year. Last night’s talk was the first opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the company’s future plans.

Richards said the hoppers will weigh about 5 kilos and be capable of traveling tens of meters to multiple kilometers. The key issue in terms of distance will be the terrain; hoppers that lose line of sight with the lander will be unable to communicate. The micro-hoppers are based on CubeSat tech and will carry a variety of experiments.

The lander itself will be able to hop. The company might use this technique to claim the $20 million Google prize, Richard said. However, it’s not an easy choice; having accomplished the most difficult part of the mission (the actual landing), why risk taking off again from the surface?

The Canadian entrepreneur views the moon as a treasure trove of valuable minerals and substances — one that humanity hasn’t been able to access yet. However, a combination of scientific discoveries, funding and new technologies have aligned to make commercial exploration and exploitation of the moon possible. The first trillionaires will be the ones who are capable of exploiting the vast riches of the moon, asteroids and other worlds, he said.

Richards said that any GLXP team that has not arranged a rocket launch by this time next year will have a difficult time competing. The prize is only available until 2015, and it takes about two years to line up a ride to the moon.