The FAA Just Took a Giant Leap Toward Commercial Lunar Flights

The Moon might be on Expedia way sooner than expected

August 3, 2016 9:00 am

People often say that if a certain candidate wins the next election, they’ll be leaving the country.

But in a world of weakend ideals and an ever-debilitating environment, where ya gonna go?

Trick question — you’re not. You’re going somewhere even farther afoot: the moon.

We’re now one step closer to that odyssey thanks to a recent ruling by the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, which just issued the thumbs up to Moon Express, a private company that plans to send a robotic mission to the moon in 2017.

The approval was no small feat; it had to go through the FAA, the State Department (for matters of national security), NASA and the White House. For this particular mission, the objectives are purely scientific: Moon Express wants to study space rocks and water that was recently found there. But eventually, their designs could go commercial, and the FAA’s ruling paves the path for that end by beginning to establish rules and procedures for the proverbial Final Frontier.

In related high-flying news, Virgin Galactic just received its first spaceship license.

Looks like Kubrick was only about 16 years off.

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