European Venture Seeks To Raise $1 Million for Lunar Mission

摘要

A European entrepreneur and engineer are betting they can raise nearly $1 million in a monthlong crowdfunding campaign that began Oct. 1 to start work on a spacecraft to land on the moon. Moonspike, a company registered in Britain but with its engineering team based in Copenhagen, Denmark, plans to develop a spacecraft to crash-land a tiny payload on the surface of the moon, as well as a rocket to launch it. The effort, its founders say, is driven as much by curiosity about whether the project is feasible as by any commercial opportunities. Chris Larmour, a former executive in several European technology companies, said the idea of Moonspike came to him early this year after he watched videos of high-altitude balloon flights. "I wondered if we could do something different, and the first thing that came into my head was, 'How hard could it be to get to the moon these days?'" he recalled in an interview.