Mission Approved – Bob Richards on the Moon Express Plan to Commercialize the Moon

The MX-1E Scout Class robotic explorer descends toward the lunar surface carrying a suite of science and exploration instruments after a 4-5 day journey from Earth. Credit: Moon Express.

Moon Express has raised $45 million(US), built hardware, tested some of it, and gotten the FAA and other government agencies to approve of its first commercial mission to the moon, and in less than a year might have its first spacecraft on the moon.

In this episode of the SpaceQ podcast Bob Richards, CEO and co-founder of Moon Express talks about the latest news from the company, including how lunar samples they return could be worth tens of millions, possibly even hundreds of millions. If true, and if Moon Express can return those samples, then an important part of their business plan will have been accomplished and a new commercial frontier will have been opened up.

Bob Richards is well known within the space community having been a co-founder of the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, the Space Generation Foundation, the International Space University and Singularity University.

Before founding Moon Express, Bob was also a founder of Odyssey Moon in 2006, the first registered team in the Google Lunar XPRIZE. Bob’s past experience, including with Odyssey Moon, led him to move to the U.S. to pursue his dream of creating a commercial space company dedicated to opening up the Moon’s resources to benefit humanity. In 2010 Moon Express was created and Bob’s new company entered the Google Lunar XPRIZE and subsequently won $1.25 million in milestone prizes including the $1 million Landing Prize and $250,000 for the Imaging Prize.

Listen to and Subscribe to the Podcast

You can subscribe to the podcast using your favourite podcast app (iOS and Android). For apps like OverCast or Pocket Cast you can search using the podcast title SpaceQ or use the RSS feed URL listed below.

The RSS feed URL is: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:286233381/sounds.rss

The podcast is also available on Apple iTunes and SoundCloud.

About Marc Boucher

Boucher is an entrepreneur, writer, editor & publisher. He is the founder of SpaceQ Media Inc. and CEO and co-founder of SpaceRef Interactive LLC. Boucher has 20+ years working in various roles in the space industry and a total of 30 years as a technology entrepreneur including creating Maple Square, Canada's first internet directory and search engine.

Leave a Reply