Ashlee Vance’s scoop article, as embedded journalist:
“The picture that emerged out of those meetings was that you could create a permanent, economically self-sustaining presence on the moon that could be done for the single-digit billions,” said Steve Jurvetson, a venture capitalist, who provided the initial Open Lunar funding. “I got excited by that idea and the compelling nature of the people involved.”
“Our highest ambition is catalyzing and enabling a peaceful and cooperative lunar settlement,” said Chelsea Robinson, the director of policy and governance for Open Lunar. “We want to take the best of what humanity has to offer and take our first self-sufficient step off Earth.”
“Some of the most prominent members of the group include the astronaut Chris Hadfield, who has spent time on the International Space Station; Will Marshall and Robbie Schingler, co-founders of the satellite maker Planet Labs; “Pete” Worden, the former director of NASA’s Ames Research Center; and Jurvetson, who has invested in both SpaceX and Planet Labs.”
“While this could all sound farfetched, there’s reason to think Open Lunar might actually be able to pull off something like an open-source moon habitat. Hadfield brings plenty of space-living expertise. Marshall is a world-class scientist who spent years working at NASA Ames on projects ranging from low-cost lunar landers to the LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite) mission that confirmed the presence of water on the moon. At Planet Labs, he and Schingler helped build the largest satellite constellation in history with hundreds of shoebox-sized devices that orbit the Earth and snap photos of its surface. Jessy Kate Schingler has spent years working on space policy and has studied experimental forms of governance.”
“If anyone were to create an open-source lunar program, it might be the team behind this project. “I want to look up at the full moon and have it mirror back to me not just light like it has for millennia,” Robinson said, “but mirror a vision for how we want our future to operate here on Earth.”
Tune in for updates at: OpenLunar.org
And a follow-up article in Geekwire and NextBigFuture.
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