Considering that the current price to land an experimental system on the Moon is at least $80,000 per pound (100 pounds for $8 Million) it is desirable to keep your payload light in weight! (This estimate assumes current prices for launch to LEO with efficient and low cost transportation to the Moon's surface: assuming you can even buy a system for that transportation stage. The listed cost is 10 times the price to LEO because practical systems will use at least 9 pounds of fuel – delivered to LEO – for each pound of mass delivered to the Moon's surface. A high empty weight for the lander will make the payload cost much higher. The low empty weight for Micro-Space Lunar Landers makes this price attainable.)

Recognizing that there is more interest in Human spaceflight than in Robotic missions, Micro-Space continues to look at possible manned uses for its systems. For Lunar Landings, this requires a round trip, with additional fuel required for the return. Since this fuel must also be carried to the Moon, the round trip cost jumps to at least $200,000 per pound of payload.

If NASA were to reinvent the Apollo LEM (rather than a heavier craft), abandon “Direct” lunar missions, and combine Lunar Orbit Rendezvous and LEO rendezvous, they could use several Delta IV Heavy launch vehicles, and get the 5000 pound empty weight LEM “Ascent Stage”, with its two crewmen, to the Moon and back for One to Two Billion Dollars. They have chosen an approach budgeted at 50 to 100 times this amount, but that is not my concern. What is my concern is that One to Two Billion Dollars is too much money to to get from commercial sponsors!

If a human landing on the Moon is going to be in the price range of a sponsored “Ocean Racing Sailboat”, the lander and ascent stage must be much lighter. They must use the “Ultralight” techniques we are perfecting for our “Google Lunar X PRIZE” Landers! And that system must be proven to work!

The high visibility Google competition is the best possible venue to demonstrate that efficient Lunar Landers actually work. Prize money can compensate investors, and adventurers can prepare to use a system more completely tested than was the Apollo 11 LEM (a lander design which had never been tested on the Moon).

It is conceivable that a “compact” astronaut could travel to the Moon for $40 Million at these prices, but a better estimate would be $60 Million, with a $20 Million penalty for an additional 100 pounds of ascent system and astronaut mass. Although launch prices have tracked inflation over several decades (and all low cost promises have proven to be empty) I think SpaceX will actually bring launch costs down by a factor of 2, and this makes a $40 Million expedition possible with practical mass and spacecraft costs. These expeditions (with a cost comparable to one IndyCar team funding for two years) will be paid for by commercial sponsors.

Success with a Google Lander thus will be a stepping stone to affordable Human Moon Landings, with greater Lander fuel load.

As noted previously, Google winning system will be able to reach, and serve on Mars. Although Human Mars missions have serious “Life Support” issues, these are not insurmountable. The biggest problem for Human Mars Landing has often been identified as the Return to Space. An increased fuel variant of the Micro-Space Lunar system is already slated for service as a Mars “Ascension Unit” for human use.

With current cost for return from Mars calculated at $500,000 per payload pound (with increased fuel delivered to LEO for return use), the lowest possible ascent stage weight is even more important than it is on the Moon. But Micro-Space “Ultralight” systems will make Mars landings possible for $100 to $150 Million, and this IS the price range for sponsored “Ocean Racing Sailboats”.

Successful operation of the “Ultralight” Micro-Space landers for the Google Lunar X PRIZE will clear the way for affordable, interplanetary Human expeditions.

“Ultralight” design has of course been used for years in experimental aircraft. While Micro-Space now has a lead in these technologies for Lunar Landers and related spacecraft, no broad patent can corner this specialty. Others can and will wake up to the importance of minimizing mass – repeatedly emphasized above, at whatever the prevailing launch cost becomes – and develop competitive systems.

For the individual with a passion for space adventure, this means that the missions outlined above will happen, whatever the future may hold for Micro-Space as one supplier. PLAN ON IT – PREPARE FOR IT! For the individual who also has a passion to be FIRST, your cooperation, combined with our lead, could plant your name in spaceflight history.