Year: 2012

The competition heats up: If you and a friend happen to have $1.4 billion, the new private company Golden Spike wants to take you to the Moon.

Golden Spike’s news release said the venture would make use of existing rockets as well as commercial spacecraft that are currently under development to send expeditions to the lunar surface, with the estimated cost of a two-person lunar surface mission starting at $1.4 billion.

There will be a lot of press stories about this. And it is good, as it illustrates again the increasing shift from government-run space missions to a robust private industry. The idea of a private company doing this is no longer considered absurd but perfectly reasonable.

Whether Golden Spike itself will do it, however, is another thing entirely. Please forgive me if I reserve the right to be a little skeptical at this point.