A team of independent rocket engineers is raising money via a Kickstarter campaign in order to build the first crowdfunded rocket that will be sent to the moon.
Co-founded by entrepreneur Chris Larmour and former Copenhagen Suborbital spacecraft designer Kristian von Bengston, Project Moonspike will consist of building a full scale rocket from scratch that will transport 1 MB of digital memories in the form of photos, video and data from each of its backers to the moon.
The team has gathered a group of experienced engineers (who have worked with organizations like NASA) together for the past nine months to get down the primary parameters of their mission. The Denmark-based team spent month designing a prototype that will be a three-stage rocket that will weight in at 22 tons and will be over 77 feet tall.
The liquid-fueled moon rocket will include a small spacecraft that will transport "the hopes and dreams of millions of people." Attached to the spacecraft is the payload (which weights 1 gram) called the Moonspike, a tiny spike of titanium that will store and protect the data.
The idea is that the rocket will blast off and first enter into low earth orbit (LEO), then orbit our planet at approximately 200 km and a speed of 8,500 meters per second. It will then fire its engines to complete its transit to the moon. The spacecraft will then touch down on the moon, where the team and the project's backers will be able to watch the live images being transmitted.
The independent engineers will start building and testing the rocket's engines first, and will be transparent during each step of the way.
Project Moonspike has a goal of raising about $1 million over the next month, with the expectation to receive the rest of the funding from private donations.
Via: Kickstarter
