Looks like my "Eat McDonald's On The Moon Before I Die" fantasy might come true after all. TransOrbital of California will be the first private company to send a spacecraft to the lunar surface, according to the BBC Science News. Granted, this will be an unmanned probe, but experts on the field of commercial space travel wonder if this is the beginning of a whole new era. I say best of luck to them. The United States has demonstrated no interest whatsoever in the final frontier lately, except perhaps to militarize it, and if that means other nations or private entities need to take the initiative to get humanity back out there, then so be it. If it's not careful, America could very well end up like China in the Middle Ages, when it turned its back on an incipient age of exploration and surrendered its spoils to the West and doomed itself to play a mean game of catch-up for the next thousand years. I've mentioned here before that China doesn't seem to want to make the same mistake twice - its highly-secretive space program is running full steam ahead, according to those in the know, which is more than anyone else can say right now.

Want to send something (albeit light) to the Moon? Go to TransOrbital's website and get on board, to the tune of $2500 per gram!

Please note however that despite my enthusiasm for this and other parties' endeavors into space exploration, I am 100% opposed to the privatization and/or militarization of space itself. The United Nations Outer Space Treaty (in force since October 1967), to which we the United States are a signatory, states clearly:

The exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind;

Outer space shall be free for exploration and use by all States;

Outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means;

States shall not place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies or station them in outer space in any other manner;

The Moon and other celestial bodies shall be used exclusively for peaceful purposes;

Astronauts shall be regarded as the envoys of mankind;

States shall be responsible for national space activities whether carried out by governmental or non-governmental activities;

States shall be liable for damage caused by their space objects; and

States shall avoid harmful contamination of space and celestial bodies.


Humanity should do everything within their power to hold the governments of the world to this agreement, lest Donald Rumsfeld and his ilk turn the cosmos into their own personal nuclear playground, or sell it off to the highest bidder.