Private Moon mission seeks Kickstarter funding

Nature : A UK consortium is setting its sights on launching a $1 billion mission within the next 10 years to explore the Moon’s south pole. Called Lunar Mission One, it would land an unmanned spacecraft on the Moon’s surface, drill a 5-cm-diameter borehole to a depth of 20–100 m, and analyze the rock samples it collects. For funding, the project’s developers have turned to Kickstarter , through which they hope to raise an initial $1 million by 17 December. In an effort to attract prospective sponsors, they are promising space for digital photos, personal messages, and so forth to be placed in a time capsule that will be buried on the Moon. Although skeptics doubt that enough people will be interested to raise the $1 billion total that will be needed for launch, Lunar Missions founder David Iron says there’s “no harm in finding out.”