Profile: Odyssey Moon
The good folks at Space.com have run a great feature on Odyssey Moon, one of the 17 teams competing for the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize. Odyssey Moon was the first team to toss its hat into the ring, and has plans to deliver — among other things — both cremated human remains and the first flower to the moon.
Clearly, these people are trying to build some sort of lunar cemetery or mausoleum. To each his own, I suppose.
Anyway, founder and CEO Robert Richards and his global team has partnered with MDA, a Canadian firm, in an effort to launch their “Moon One” (M-1) Lunar Lander in July 2011. Odyssey hopes Moon One is only the first in a series of low-cost robotic missions to the moon.
“Odyssey Moon is about an ongoing commitment to lunar enterprise,” said Richards. “We believe there is a long-term business opportunity.”
For what it’s worth, Richards and his organization have nothing to do with our very own Lunar Odyssey.