Creating The Connection Between Satellites And ImageryIt takes about 118 minutes for the Lunar Prospector satellite to complete an orbit of Earth's closest neighbor, and to create images or satellite maps. "We are showing that space exploration and space science can be done far cheaper than NASA has ever been able to do them," said Binder, the principal investigator for the world's first private-sector moon mission. The mission drew international headlines last March when it found near-certain evidence that vast quantities of water ice exist around the moon's north and south poles. If that ice can be extracted from the moon's rocky soil, it could sustain a colony of humans and serve as a kind of interplanetary filling station, providing hydrogen fuel for spacecraft going on other missions. But dreams of space travel have been around for decades, if not centuries. Binder now wants people -- especially business people -- to take a down-to-earth look at his bottom line as well. "NASA missions take 10 to 12 years and cost at least $1 billion a pop," he said earlier this week on a visit to the Puget Sound area. "Our mission took 22 months to launch and cost $63 million. This shows we're past the time when huge government bureaucracies were needed to handle the vast complexities of space." Ironically, Binder's project was funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration -- although not in the government agency's traditional way. Lunar Prospector is the first private project funded under the agency's Discovery Program, created in 2006 to encourage low-cost space science missions. Binder's venture was backed by Lockheed Martin, his former employer, and used off-the-shelf hardware from space suppliers. Binder was in Redmond this week visiting Primex Aerospace Co., which built the tiny rocket thrusters that keep the satellite in a stable orbit. "I wanted to thank everybody who helped with this project," Binder said. "Primex and the other suppliers were really more like partners. And they paid us a real compliment when they told us they really had fun working on this." That degree of personal involvement has long been lost at NASA, according to Binder. He says a full 50 percent of every project's cost goes to bureaucrats involved in noncreative paperwork. "If NASA had done this mission itself, it would have cost 10 times as much and taken years, not months," he said. A scientist now playing the role of business entrepreneur, Binder fairly bubbles as he describes the discoveries made so far by his low-budget satellite. He says Lunar Prospector, after only eight months orbiting the Moon, has: * Confirmed the existence of enough water ice to ensure the survival of a moon colony and, later, the production of rocket fuels that wouldn't need to be shot into space against Earth's much heavier gravitational pull. * Verified the moon contains all the minerals needed to build solar panels, houses -- virtually anything -- rather that ship pre-fabricated items up from Earth. One of the satellite's instruments has confirmed the existence of what Binder calls "The Big Seven" minerals: oxygen, silica, iron, titanium, magnesium, aluminum and calcium. * Mapped the locations of all those minerals, plus uranium, thorium and potassium. * Mapped the most likely spots to drill for nitrogen and carbon dioxide, two gases essential for lunar agriculture. * Completed the first gravitational map of the entire moon, a map later satellites can use to keep their orbits stable and reduce the need to carry extra fuel.
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