Private company developing commercial lunar lander

[bananas]

3. Radio Free Europe interviews Golden Spike's business manager

http://www.rferl.org/content/golden-spike-private-trips-railway-to-the-moon/24810367.html

Private Company Hopes To Build 'Railway' To The Moon
December 27, 2012

The last time a human went to the moon was 40 years ago this month. Now, a private U.S. company called Golden Spike is trying to reignite interest by creating a transport system to the moon that any nation can use. RFE/RL correspondent Charles Recknagel spoke to Golden Spike's business manager, Max Vozoff, to learn more.

RFE/RL: Your company, Golden Spike, announced earlier this month that it hopes to build a rocket system that will be able to fly two-person crews to the moon and back for a price of $1.5 billion per flight by 2020. You hope to interest nations around the world in renting your service to send their own astronauts to the moon. But which nations and to do what?

Max Vozoff: There are half-a-dozen nations that are sending robotic spacecraft to the moon in this decade alone, with orbiters and landers, and the price tags on all of those missions are right in the ballpark of what we are proposing in order to send two people to the moon.

So, clearly there is a need and there is something of a market among those nations. But even beyond those nations which are clearly capable of building spacecrafts themselves, there are many other nations and space programs around the world, countries that are trying to stimulate their industries, stimulate education, and just get a piece of the cachet and prestige associated with space travel and exploration, who don't have the funding or capability to develop a transportation system themselves, certainly not for people.

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