{"id":11534,"date":"2015-10-06T15:19:46","date_gmt":"2015-10-06T19:19:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=11534"},"modified":"2015-10-06T15:19:46","modified_gmt":"2015-10-06T19:19:46","slug":"moonspike-crowd-funding-a-mission-to-put-a-tiny-payload-into-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=11534","title":{"rendered":"Moonspike crowd-funding a mission to put a tiny payload into the Moon"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Moonspike<\/a>\u00a0project\u00a0made its debut last week.\u00a0The project\u00a0aims to build a low cost two-stage rocket and a spacecraft to send\u00a0a “tiny”\u00a0payload to the Moon. The group is led by\u00a0Chris Larmour, who has run several technology companies,\u00a0and\u00a0Kristian von Bengtson, who is well-known as a co-founder of Copenhagen Suborbitals<\/a>, an organization developing a rocket for carrying a single person on a suborbital space trip. While Copenhagen Suborbitals is a volunteer, non-profit, the\u00a0Moonspike\u00a0project is organized as the private company Moonspike, Ltd<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The goal is to impact this 1 gram\u00a0“Lunar Penetrator” into the Moon’s surface:<\/p>\n

\"LunarPenetrator\"<\/a>\u00a0The spike is titanium and the disk will hold a flash memory chip with digital photos\u00a0and\u00a0messages from backers of the project.<\/p>\n

Moonspike has opened a crowd-funding campaign to raise over $909k and as of today has gotten nearly\u00a0$80k pledged with 26 days left:\u00a0Moonspike: the World’s First Crowdfunded Moon Rocket by Moonspike Limited \u2014 Kickstarter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You can download their feasibility report (pdf)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here is a video laying out their plan:<\/p>\n