About 47 years ago, Kam Ghaffarianthe billionaire space entrepreneur, emigrated to United States from Iran. Today, Ghaffarian, 66, specializes in lunar missions.
And one of Ghaffarian's companies has done something no private organization has ever done: land softly on the surface of the Moon.
Its range of companies includes not only the one that sent a lander to the Moon, but also one that builds a space station to orbit the Earth, another that designs advanced nuclear reactors and a nonprofit organization that studies the faster than light travel.
While bombastic billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have attracted attention for their efforts to launch reusable rockets, Ghaffarian's companies have helped answer the question of what to do with them. The key innovation of SpaceX has been the construction of rockets that have reduced the cost of going to space. Ghaffarian companies are using those cheap rockets to commercialize space activity.
“If you look at cars or airplanes and all that, there were entrepreneurs who created them and changed the game, right?” he said. “What comes to mind is Henry Ford or Howard Hughes”.
The objective of Intuitive Machinesco-founded by Ghaffarian in 2013, is to build power plants, satellite networks and other infrastructure for a lunar base.
On February 15, Intuitive Machines launched a lunar lander called 'Odysseus' aboard a SpaceX rocket, the first of two it intends to send to the nearby satellite this year on behalf of NASA. Odysseus was covered in the space agency's cameras, a laser reflector and a sensorr to measure the Moon's plasma environment.
But unlike NASA's typical mission, this one carried cargo paid for by private organizations. The isolation of 'Odysseus' was designed by Columbia Sportswear. The ship transported the first data center of a company, Lonestar Data Holdings, which wants store information on the Moon. And it contained art: 125 miniature moons created by Jeff Koons and sealed in a 15-centimeter plastic cube, paid for by an NFT company and destined to be left on the lunar surface.
'Odysseus' landed on the moon on February 22, but not perfectly. The spacecraft fell on its side, limiting communications with Earth. Even so, Steve Altemusco-founder with Ghaffarian of Intuitive Machines, said Odysseus achieved its main goal: landing on the Moon “gently and safely, and returning scientific data to our customers.”
NASA's decision to outsource to private companies is aimed at accelerating America's return to the Moon. The 'Odysseus' mission is, essentially, the first wave of the Artemisa programwhose objective is that theAmerican astronauts will set foot on the Moon again in 2026.
The goal of this generation's lunar campaign is slightly different from the Apollo program, which sent astronauts to the Moon between 1969 and 1972. As NASA administrator Bill Nelson likes to say, this time we're staying put.
Artemis aims to have humans make repeated, extended visits to the Moon to conduct research and enable deeper exploration of space. But there is another goal: the agency wants to create conditions for an extra-global economy — and build infrastructure, transportation, payment systems and more.
The coalition of countries that operates the International Space Station hopes to retire it before the end of the decade. NASA has asked private companies to develop their own stations. Axiomanother of Ghaffarian's companies, set out to do just that and obtained the right to connect its own module to the International Space Station in 2026.
The true believers in space economy They imagine moving from a world of government space exploration to a future in which activity in space looks a lot like Earth—a mix of people, companies, and countries with divergent goals. Before the launch of 'Odysseus,' Ghaffarian spoke with colleagues, NASA officials, SpaceX employees and investors.
“We could have hourly visits to the space station or Space City, daily trips to the Moon and weekly trips to Mars, and maybe interstellar trips,” he told them.
“I simply believe that the ultimate destiny of humanity is to go to the stars,” he said.
By: Tim Fernholz
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/7143293, IMPORTING DATE: 2024-03-06 02:48:03
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